home on the range....

i have enjoyed being home by myself the last couple of days. i slept a lot the day after xmas, not getting up until 11 a.m. as a matter of fact, i am not even sure i got dressed that day. i know for sure i did not leave the house.
i have puttered around, listened to a lot of cds, and watched a few movies. i have also gotten caught up at least on the paper version of the ny times sunday editions that have been hanging around in a pile by my bed. i am now going to work on the magazines that go with the tabloids. i am also reading patti boyd's autobiography WONDERFUL TONIGHT about her life with george harrison and eric clapton. fluff reading, but ok. i just finished SAVAGES by bill pronzini, and prior to that RHETT BUTLER'S PEOPLE, which is the officially licensed prequel to GONE WITH THE WIND. also ripped through the newest clive cussler book, THE CHASE, and have a few left on the floor for me to read.
it rained the first day home, and is raining now. has gotten colder, and that is fine with me. i have done a lot of cooking for no one in particular and mostly i am giving it away. i fixed chilli for meg and her brood, a ham, potato salad, beef ribs in the oven with potatoes and wine sauce, a lot of coffee, and bread. took food to bruce and amy next door and i wish i could get rid of the tons of sweets in this house. austin is at bebo's and doesn't seem to be headed home anytime soon, so it is all just sitting around here. i bought the stuff to make borscht, as terre asked me if i was going to make it, but then, after i bought all the stuff, she called and said she was too busy this weekend with other things. sigh. i don't know if i will make it or not this weekend. we'll see.
i went out to pad thai restaurant with brenda davis for dinner tonight and that was nice. pam and her mother came by last night and we exchanged xmas presents. she gave me a calendar for 2008 with pictures on it from our trip as well as some lotion and a scrubby thing for the shower. i gave her lotion and stuff for the shower as well and a copy of WILD HOGS the movie, but she already had gotten it for taylor for xmas, so i ended up with it back to me. i went online tonight and made her a calendar for herself with pictures from last year as well.
i don't have any other plans other than i would like to get to work on some jewelry stuff, but the time has been right yet. i am cleaning up around the house, and have had some problems with the garbage disposal today being clogged. i am hoping that the draino i put in there will resolve the issue. otherwise, i will have to fetch bruce to come and save me from my plumbing disaster. i took him a 6 pack of beer today along with the food, so maybe he will be amiable. amy's grandmother died xmas day and she flew to dallas yesterday for the funeral. she will be back tomorrow night and i told bruce i would pick her up.
with the exception of my brother's meltdown, xmas has been fine. everyone got along fine and there has been way too much food. my kitchen table is piled up with all sorts of stuff to cook with, all the baking things. i think i need to finish off whatever baking i am going to do tomorrow and put it all back.
one thing that i have enjoyed is watching my little birds. i put bread crumbs out there for them, and it has been titmouses and finches. i saw my first cardinal today, and of course, that fucking squirrel. nothing i can do about him. he doesn't even scare easily. i hate a damned squirrel...

Foxhole Report 2007 - Friendly Fire

it always comes in from somewhere, that grenade of yore...
never where you expect it from, christmas is never a bore
you think and you ponder, and hunker down low
but your never prepared for the size of the blow...

and the winner this year is.....MY BROTHER! who went mental over buying matchbox cars for the kids of the cousins. and even a week later, i STILL have no clue what caused him to go over the edge, short of my only explanation...the medicine isn't working...

The Corner Bar and Grill Review - Docs & Spreadsheets

The Corner Bar and Grill Review - Docs & Spreadsheets

a cold, a fried house, a fried computer...

home on a saturday afternoon, sniffling with a cold and feeling like i have been run over by a truck...but that is normal for me anyway....
once more, electrical nuttiness has occurred. more fried outlets, more electrical irritations. the outside GFI isn't working and apparently it is wired in some funky way under the house. in any case, it needs to be rewired in a way that puts it into the breaker box and at least accessible. the problem is that it is xmas, when i want my lights up and shining. so far, this has been a bust. but...they are coming monday to hopefully correct the problem. i have now been told where the reset button is in the house (the bathroom receptacle), so i can get to some of it.
got up early this morning and hit the walmart to take back the angel tree clothing i bought last weekend. there was a glitch in the pickup, and my angel's stuff didn't get delivered. i tried to find someone that the clothing could go to, but wasn't able to. so i just took it back. also went and vaccumed my car and did armor all inside and cleaned the dashboard stuff. i felt pretty good about that. moved the old computer downstairs and managed to figure out how to get it to work. don't have much other than internet, as i haven't been able to get a microsoft program to load up, but at least i can get to the internet. the big computer is in the shop for a diagnostic, as it wasn't allowing the monitor to hook up. looks like it is a fan/overheating problem. hopefully, i won't have to replace it. all of this started with the purchase of a video card for austin's xmas present which did not work. i am going to now have to send that back and replace it with the proper one.
other things on my list today are to clean up the spots on my carpets and cook some stuff for meg and myself.
i am writing all of this boring stuff down because it isn't boring to me. it is possibilities, ones that i haven't had for a long time b/c i have felt so crappy. i am feeling better and more energetic right now, and i want to be able to remember that.

feeling better

it has been a long time since i actually felt pretty good. i would define "pretty good" as having a minimum of pain and actually have enough energy to want to do something. with fibromyalgia, every day is an adventure in something.

so when i started to actually have a bit of energy last week, it really enervated me. i went out and did stuff that seems normal to most people, but was a big deal to me. there were a lot of little nagging things that needed to be done, and i did them. just for me, i am going to list them here, because i want to be able to go back and remember this when i am feeling not so good and not so motivated.

on friday i went to the courthouse and got my county sticker for the car. i also went to the dmv and transferred the vanity plate from the van to the kia. i went to wawa and got a shorti. i went to b.j.'s and did some slow xmas shopping. i bought a wireless keyboard for my computer in my room. i talked to the nationwide people about getting the electricity done on my shed, which has been hanging over me since august. i made cd's for mj and mailed them. i think i slept through most of the night.

on saturday i got up regular time and went to cosco. i made a bunch of cd's for gifts on saturday night. i went to wawa and got a cup of coffee. i watched the tech/boston college game on tv. i filled up the front pond with water. i pulled weeds out of the front flower bed, which had been there since the end of the summer. i took out the trash. i listened to xmas music. i actually watched a movie ("Annapolis") i didn't just lay in front of the tv and watch mindless television because i just couldn't do much more. i slept pretty well i think, even though i didn't go to bed until after 2 am.

on sunday i went to the store and bought some things to cook. i had bought chocolate candy for a christmas project that brenda davis was doing with the mentally disabled and took it to them. i drove around in the country and didn't go straight home. i read the richmond paper. i took out the trash again. i cooked chili, a pasta salad and kale. i cleaned the counters and emptied the dishwasher. i did two loads of laundry and folded them. i installed the new keyboard on my computer and tried to install windows, but it wouldn't go, so i quit (i will have to get it from school and install it at home.) i got amy and we went down to the pond and pulled john's lime green wading pool out of the pond where it has resided since fourth of july weekend. i made chicago hot dogs for lunch and then took two to amy and bruce. i changed the linens on my bed and folded up the big load of laundry that had been sitting in my room. i also cleaned out the bathroom closet and rearranged it and i checked two strings of xmas lights and pulled off the good lights when it was determined that half of each string was bad.

this stuff means nothing to anyone but me. but it means a lot. it gives me some hope. i had pretty much decided after months and months of feeling listless and pained that this was what it was going to be. it is nice to be reminded that it doesn't always have to be this way. it is nice to get a glimpse of things that is different.

i went to wawa today and found 4 angel pennies. i am not alone.

thanksgiving 07

up early this morning to take austin to basketball practice. it is black friday in america, the day where people go nuts spending their money. how are they nuts? on my way home last night from amelia we passed our best buy in mechanicsville and there were people in tents in front of the store and sacked out on the sidewalk. that is nuts to me, period. there were pictures in the paper today of women with their kids spending the night on the sidewalk. i am thinking "get a babysitter!" traffic, of course, is nuts, and the parking lots are filled up in all the malls as expected. i did go to michaels at virginia center commons and the lines were long there to check out and the shelves looked as if they had been stripped bare of things, but i did manage to buy some stuff i wanted like candles and t-shirts.

we went up to pam and taylor's for thanksgiving dinner. there were over 20 people there, quite a crowd. i stopped by mary beth's house and brought her some flowers and gave her one of the crocheted wreathes that i have that mamama made. she seems to be doing ok handling her mother's death and she has redone her living room. i wish i could do the same thing. just don't have the money, nor the decorating ability either!

i went around this morning taking pictures of the holiday leaves. they are so pretty and i know a picture isn't going to really capture it, but i tried. i probably waited too late though. just in the last 48 hours the leaves have started leaping off the limbs, and some of the yards are just filled up already. i don't have many leaves in my yard, so i don't bother to try and rake them. bebo, however, does, and i am afraid austin is going to be stuck with that odious task.

fall weather...

i went out on the porch tonight and sat there and talked to aunt grace. the leaves this fall have been somewhat spectacular, something that no one expected. we had been told that the drought would rob the trees of any good color. experts wrong. the leaves have not only been every shade, but they have hung upon the trees way longer than expected.

it is hard to face the end of november with 70 degree weather, but i am starting to get used to it. i keep remembering coming home from tech for the first time, which was at thanksgiving '74. i remember smelling wood smoke and wearing sweaters and cords and it was cold. two of the four thanksgivings when i was in college we drove back in a helicious snow storm. they closed the school. the NEVER close the school for snow. now, we have no snow. global warming? i guess we'll never know, but i miss the fall weather, and i miss the cold winter. i need to go dormant, to hibernate. last winter it never happened. we never had more than 3 days of really cold weather in a row, and a couple of 70 degree days in january. no snow days. no nothing.

here's to the leaves and the geese leaving late at night and honking and the deer who come up for the deer corn. so far, no birds, even though i have put out breadcrumbs on the railing of the deck to lure them here. i need to put seed in the feeders and drag the corn out for the deer. i am doing all the prep for winter. let's hope it makes a difference!

a weary teacher's life...

it would really be nice if the alternate universe really existed. say, for instance, that people who don't know jack shit about what a teacher does suddenly had to do what we do. or maybe, for a week, the teachers could take over the school board offices and the state board of education offices and maybe even have a stint in the hallowed halls of the state capital. what would happen if suddenly teachers could plot out the future of public education?

my recent experience with public education involved a massive waste of money on the part of taxpayers in hanover county. this waste of money was a direct result of people who have great intentions being clueless about the final goal. we recently administered a 9 weeks assessment test to all students in all grades in core curriculum areas (math, science, english and social studies.) the county wanted to get students used to taking an SOL type test. they wanted to see where students were doing poorly via statistics, and thus providing classroom teachers with hard data that they could take back to the classroom for "fine tuning" of student learning.

well, there is a problem with this line of thought, not the least of which is the whole concept of teaching to a test. it has now been determined by the powers that be that the only way to tell if a student is learning is if he/she passes the SOL. that would be fine, if the tests really did determine that, but they don't. what they determine is if a student was able to memorize the material for that day. the tests don't allow for much else, and it is almost impossible for teachers to even accurately aim them in the right directions because teachers are not making up the tests.

it is a curious thing about the education business. those in charge rarely were teachers, yet they make the determinations for the futures of young people from the state capitals. they rely on the opinions and numbers of "experts" and go with that, not considering the fact the so called experts aren't in a classroom. teachers are. so why aren't they consulting us?

we know what we do everyday, and what it takes to try and educate a child. we deal with all of the social/economic/psychological issues that children bring with to school each day. we deal with what prevents students from wanting to learn. we are the ones trying to teach the material. we are the ones teaching to the test because our jobs and public perception depend upon it. who cares about what is being learned? as long as those statistics are up there, the inhabitants of the various school board and legislative ivory towers can pat themselves on the back and say they have been successful.

the numbers prove only that we have crammed a lot of information into kids to memorize. we are now seeing the first generation of SOL tested kids reach high school, and what we are seeing is alarming.

for the most part, the kids don't have a whole lot of imagination. they don't know how to functionally think without someone pointing them in the right direction. learning for them has become rote and tired and static. the dynamics of learning, the thinking out of the box and application of lessons, well, there is no time to do that now. we have to cover the material and drill, drill, drill. no child is to be left behind, yet some of them need to be left behind.

the irony of this is that we have said that all children learn differently, perceive differently and learn at their own pace. yet we wipe out the possibility of all these things by teaching them to all take the same tests.

i lost faith in the system years ago when i discovered that the head of the state board of education, the man who pushed for the SOL test had never been a teacher. he was an entertainment lawyer. i attended a county convocation in which he was the guest speaker. it was in this convocation that he revealed his educational status, and his reasoning for being in the educational wing of the state. that reason: he loved his elementary teacher, and she made a great impression upon him. sorry to tell you this, but love and respect for teachers does not exactly qualify as a good enough reason for people such as he to be the ones dictating policy in the area of education. what if i suddenly decided that i would run the state bar association because i had watch Law & Order and loved the actors and the show? that doesn't mean i am qualified.

the list goes on and on. in the school board offices are former teachers, many having been out of the classroom for so long that they have no clue what goes on in there anymore. certainly we are better off having people in these positions who have at least been a teacher at some point. but that still does not excuse away the fact that they are woefully out of touch with those of us down in the trenches.

in their zeal to prove to the world that we are creating more and more educated children, they keep coming up with more and more ways to keep us from really teaching. now, instead of teaching to a test at the end of the school year, we are teaching to a test every 9 weeks. i guess i should be happy i am not in henrico, where they herd the lemmings over the test cliff every 3 weeks.

the facts: first, the test was hugely flawed. the county took the statistics from flawed tests and who knows what they are going to use the data for. they went to the expense of running off a personal scantron test for each child, as well as providing them each with their own personal copy of a bound test. money certainly could have been saved if they had made a classroom set of tests to use, vs. the thousands they printed and will end up in a landfill somewhere. they had to buy a special scantron machine to run these all through to get the stats. but then they gave the tests back to the teachers so that we could tweak the test grades. oh, did i mention that it was dictated that all students would get a test grade for this test. i ended up throwing out 7 questions out of 50, and that meant a 14 point curve. many teachers had not covered materials, so they had to eliminate those questions as well. so what was gained by this huge waste of money, time (2 days to give the tests) and paper? nothing. when our department chair went up to the school board office to meet with the head of english, the only explanation was that this was a "work in progress" and that they knew there were problems. yes, there are. the problem is constantly measuring everyone on a statistical yardstick.

money would be better spent in the countys if they stopped with the ridculous drive towards numbers. that smacks simply of public relations and the need to "prove" via numbers that we are "doing our job." what no one knows is exactly what our jobs are, and they don't welcome our opinions or suggestions. they figuratively pat us on the heads as if we were just overactive children who need to be placated for a moment.

another solution would be to stop ignoring social issues as causes for poor classroom performance. no one knows what it is like to have one or two totally disruptive kids in a classroom ruin the learning atmosphere. there is little we can do anymore, as most administrators do not want to deal with this issue the way that it should be dealt with. that would be that these kinds of kids need to be in a specialized school, such as the Georgetown School in Hanover, where hopefully they can be successful in a small, contained learning environment. yet, year after year, these kids stay in the classroom with their myriad of problems, and ruin the learning for the other kids who might be motivated if they weren't so entirely distracted by the behavior of the bad apples. unfortunately, the "no child left behind" concept seems to ignore the fact that for the betterment of the whole as a group, some of them should be left behind. the tail should not wag the dog in a public classroom.

another solution would be to get rid of block classes. for once, it would be nice if those in charge actually looked at the numbers on SOL tests for kids in everyday classes. what they would find is that they are higher and the kids apparently learn the material better. why? because the average teenager has about an hour of attention and then he is gone. i have never understood the reason that we dropped the everyday classes across the board. the system wasn't broken, so why "fix" it? apparently, block classes are good for science labs. however, there aren't all that many labs compared to the english classes, world language classes and others who will tell you that everyday classes would be a blessing. an hour is just enough to do one good lesson. plus, students will have a little homework each night and they will not have to worry about what day it is and what books to haul back and forth. better focus and the ability to pay attention does lead to better abilities to retain information.

teachers cannot be on school boards. they are called up in a more or less profunctory way to meetings and task forces examining things for those in charge. translation: we serve on committees, research, write tests, eduate and present our findings and suggestions to the talking heads...and then it is never acted upon. they just do whatever they think is right, while having the ability to say that teachers contributed. sorry, that isn't what really happens. we contribute, but we are edited, severely in most cases.

the results are staggering. most of my colleagues who are reaching retirement age are going to retire. they might have stayed on if they had been given the opportunity to teach. but we don't have much time for that now, considering all the paperwork and useless inservices and meetings and emails that we have to attend to. we spend so much time trying to prove what we are doing that we don't have much time to do it. how ironic is that? the students are in constant need of some sort of stimulus, which is really confusing to a generation of teachers who read instead of listening to an ipod or watching a tv. we don't IM, nor do we play video games 24/7. we took walks and talked on the telephone and read for pleasure and were able to sit still and concentrate. our kids don't do that. too much technology, too big a buffet table of things to do. yet we are charged with the task of making sure this generation learns. what does that mean anymore?

blips

i haven't written on this in awhile, for what reason, i don't know. in any case, i have just a few things to make observations about, little blips, if i can do this short...

big controversy last week over delegate frank hargrove's response to the idea that the state of virginia general assembly make a formal apology to all blacks concerning slavery. his response was that they should "get over it." then he went on to say that making whites atone for slavery was like asking jews to apologize for killing christ. ouch. my first response was to shake my head, but as much as i hate to admit it, i am getting really weary of the ongoing civil war debate. it seems that relations between blacks and whites has gotten worse instead of better, and i think there is much more polarization now than there was before. now it is sort of an insidious undercurrent, and i think to a certain extent all of us are sucked in. i am. i am not for reparations to blacks for slavery, and i am getting a bit weary of having to defend what is essentially history. it happened. so did the holocaust, so did the internment of japanese during WWII and so did we wipe out the native americans. not everything can be solved by giving people money or apologizing formally. would that change anything between white people and blacks? i don't think so.

blip II: what is wrong with george bush and the rest of his posse? why send in 21,500 more troops to "get the job done" when the american public clearly sent a message via voting in november that we don't want this war? why should be devote any more money, time or lives to a cause that may not end in what we want? and speaking for what we want, what exactly is that since there are no weapons of mass destruction? my thoughts: i don't think every culture needs to be democratic. sometimes it is better just to leave people and their countries alone. democracy too has its pitfalls, not the least of which is the disintegration of american cultures and basic human morals.

blip III: the lack of sustained cold weather is just killing me. i am truly discovering how cyclical i am. i need cold, gloomy weather. i need to hibernate, be dormant. that way i can appreciate spring when it comes. right now, there has been no winter, just extended forays into spring or fall. for those who don't think global warming is a problem, spend xmas in richmond wearing shorts in 70 degree weather.

blip IV: i am tired of people in general. they annoy the hell out of me, especially the younger ones, who are always bitching and complaining and seemingly ungrateful about everything that comes so easily to them. i avoid the 20 somethings as much as possible at school, especially the special ed ones. all i hear from them are constant whines about how much paperwork they have to do, etc. that pill goes down a bit hard with me, as they don't have to grade papers and most are presiding over classes of less than 10 if it is a resource class, or they are glorious backup in the classroom for the regular teacher. the amount of work they do outside the classroom is minimal, and they seem to have more money to burn than god. so what is their complaint? life is good and they don't even know it.

blip V: who cares about american idol, survivor part 96, dancing with the stars, big fat loser, and the rest of the reality shows? well, apparently i must be the only one who doesn't based upon the ratings. this makes me both sad and scared. majority rules in this country, and apparently the shallow end of the gene pool is being catered to.

blip VI: abortion. my observation on that is as follows. the only ones who have benefited from abortions for the most part are the middle to upper class who can afford it. those who are poor and likely shouldn't be breeding are still doing so, keeping their kids, and not parenting. somedays, after seeing some of the pisspoor parenting is see with my students, i wonder if the chinese don't have it right and put a cap on the number of kids people can have. small wonder that society is rotting from the inside out. we just keep having kids who are brought up on a steady diet of television (remember the content above?), video games (more ways to expand your brain and learn not to read), rap music ( another joke. why can't those young people use their positions of power and rap about something positive for kids to emulate?) and junk food. never mind that most of them act like they have been raised by wolves, which it sometimes feels as if they have been. the lack of common courtesy and respect for others around you has become pretty apparent if you ever shop at walmart. just trying to negotiate down an aisle and get people to let you pass is a wonder in and of itself.

blip VII: money is still the root of all evil. period. and i have no idea how to raise a child to think about something other than money when he is living in a world that puts money and the acquisition of it as a priority. how you get it doesn't matter. just get it. no matter if you lie cheat or steal. do it.

blip VIII: cheaply paid teachers, highly paid athletes and the american obsession with sports. it seems that every time derek jeter comes to bat he is paid around $32,000. that means that one and a half at bats equals what i make in a year. which one of us is the most valuable to society? hmmm. what about athletes as role models? check the paper daily for the constant parade of sorry characters who have money, prestige and face time, yet fritter what they have away doing nothing positive. and they whine because they have the spotlight on them. or they whine because they don't want to be role models. tough tittikaka. you want fame, you have to take what comes with it, which should be responsibility. but who expects that? most of these athletes have been told all their lives how great they are and how invincible they are. so why should they feel like they have to act with any modicum of decorum? they can practically buy their way out of any crisis they get into, and they get a lot of slack because they are famous. how many chances would i get if i were to commit the same crimes? it doesn't take a brain surgeon to figure that one out.