Vacation!

It's Thursday morning, I haven't been here for a week yet and it feels like we have been here a month. Things are crazy as usual, here's a glimpse:

Saturday-

* Haircut at barber shop
* Mom and dad to wedding
* Sarah and I took grandma and grandpa to Kara and Katie's grad party for day

Sunday-

* Church at 9
* Reception to say goodbye to Jeff and Julia
* Catered brunch for wedding participants (got moved at last minute when air conditioner broke)
* Crashed and took nap
* Fathers day with grandpa
* Vacation Bible School kick off, helped crew for hot air balloon

Monday-

*On the road for Chicago - two traffic jams added 2 hours to our trip
* Dinner with John and stayed at his apartment

Tuesday-

*Located Betsy and hit Starbucks
*Appointment at headache clinic - happy with progress, my favorite Dr. is leaving :-(
* Field Museum - great exhibits - highly recommended!
* Lunch at Hard Rock Cafe (who can resist their valet parking in downtown!)
*Dropped Betsy at friends work and headed back to Michigan

Wednesday-

*NOTHING - I stayed in my pajamas all day until dinner. We took Jeff and Julia out for a see you later dinner so I showered and such but when we got home it was right back in my jammies and we finished tying a quilt they had been working on.

Thursday-

TBA Sarah and Dad headed out to the links this morning but I opted to stay home and relax a little. I need to get back on a schedule. I hope everyone is doing well. Drop me a line and let me know what's going on!

Big Bang

Last Thursday I completed my second year at Crane. I am celebrating it as a success because seep down I like my kids and my job. The day was good, we saw them all for a little while, said our goodbyes. I sorted through some boxes and got rid of some stuff etc... Then the day ended. It was a half day and the kids were all crying, because, let's be realistic, this is the now for them. For a lot of these kids who move around and have very flexible families, school is the one constant in their lives. So everyone is crying and hugging and all the teachers are out for bus duty trying to herd them to the buses when all of sudden I am in the middle of a fight trying to pull one of my students off of another. They had a hold of each other's hair in death grips and refused to let go. I was pulling pretty hard on one and my fellow teacher Mrs. M was pulling equally hard on the other. The math teacher jumped in and the gimpy social studies teacher and police officer (who is on crutches at the moment) also tried to get in. It took some doing but we untangled everyone and I had to physically pick my student up and remover her from the area. We got them separated and calmed down pretty quickly because the 8th grade promotion was starting so there were parents milling around. Sarah in the mean time had been across the yard, seen what was happening and run to our aid. She went for the principal who was outside with us but oblivious to the whole thing.

I am still not sure what the whole thing was about my my student got pretty scratched up from fingernails and she was upset, she didn't start it and was apparently caught off guard. We also learned that another girl had been involved and slipped away during the commotion so we called her house and her mother brought her in immediately when she got off the bus.

It certainly ended the year with a big bang!

Extravaganza

I am exhausted! But it is good, today we had fun, I was in charge of the jousting matches at the carnival this morning and I took a few hits but overall I had a winning record. We had boxing, water slides, a rock climbing wall, a giant slip and slide, an obstacle course and more. All set up in our parking lot. It was great and the kids behaved great, it was hot so we are sunburned and tired. Now we have had lunch and are watching "Akeelah and the Bee" until it is time to go home. Then tomorrow it will be the last day. This was a positive way to end the year.

Especially since there hasn't been alot of positives lately. We are in huge budget crunches and we are being forced to lose a teacher to the elementary. My boss put it to us to decide as a staff, which I think is unfair, but that is the way it is. I offered to go but they said no. They can't afford to lose an English teacher. They want a social studies teacher to go.

One of my students is in lock up because she assaulted a police officer during a domestic disturbance last weekend and has to stay there until July 6th. Another is under house arrest and yet another is in in school all week for coming forward and admitting he took part in a crime. Things are messy for my kids. I teach the low ones so their lives are a little harder than others. Sarah got a huge gift basket from one of hers with a gift card and scrapbooking stuff in it. I felt bad at first knowing I wouldn't get anything from my kids. Then I remembered that I don't need anything. I get satisfaction every time they get a good grade on a test or learn the meaning of a new word.

I am a tree!

I am a tree, I did it! Sarah and I started going to Yoga class during spring break so it has been about 3 months and my goal has been to do tree stand without falling over. I did it tonight, twice! I was so excited - the instructor kept telling me to keep going that the strength work would pay off and it did. For anyone that doesn't know what tree pose check this out:

http://www.santosha.com/asanas/vriksha.html

It ain't easy bein' green

I try to be conscious of the world and my impact on it. When the scientists said to stop using aerosols I did, when they said to stop using lead in products we did, when they said to stop drinking so much bottled water because the bottles were stacking up and not biodegrading fast enough I did, even though I miss it.

So now, even though I am trying to do what they say it's not enough and I have to wonder if it will ever be enough. Newsweek reported this week that male fish in the Colorado River are turning into female fish thus causing a reproductive problem and it is being caused by non other than anti bacterial soap being washed down the drains.

So now I am going to stop using anti bacterial soap as well. The scientists are investigating the link that this finding has on humans. They are seeing a connection to puberty starting earlier in girls and lower sperm count in men. The results could be devastating to our future. All of this from fish! And people wonder why I don't sleep.

Gone Green

Mary Kay has gone GREEN! No, your make -up will not be green, we are still MK Pink and proud of it but we have jumped on the environmentally friendly bandwagon. I got an order yesterday and it came with new packing material. Peanuts. OK, peanuts are not new but we usually get brown paper. These peanuts are special. They are made out of some crazy biodegradable stuff and they are OK to throw away because they will break down quickly or, are you ready for this...They dissolve in hot water. It really works. I poured them in the sink and soaked them in hot water and they disappeared down the drain. It was fantastic.

So now you have one more reason to buy MK, we're not just pink anymore, we're green too!

Good Things

This is a good week. There are bad things, there always are but today I will tell you the good things

1. We had the golf party for our little city champions and it was fun, we golfed, ate pizza, took pictures and hung out.

2. We had a long weekend and got to do lots of things without feeling super rushed all the time.

3. My shoulder is still feeling good (knock on wood)

4. My purchase order was approved to buy the team championship shirts and the guy is designing really cool ones for us!

5. I didn't have to write and behavior referrals today

6. Only 16 more days until we fly home!!!!!!

7. I am content, not frustrated or angry or headachy just content. and happy being so.

Sadness

Anyone who works with children will tell you the same thing: it is bittersweet

This like all my other jobs have been is difficult. It is an ongoing mess of misbehavior, stress, upper management mismanagement exhaustion and fun. That's right I said fun. We wouldn't do it if deep down it didn't give us a sense of joy we couldn't get anywhere else. Oh we complain, you should hear the teachers lounge on Fridays! But let someone outside of our profession say something about our kids and watch how fast we come to their defense. We are protective mother bears - they are our babies for better or for worse.

The year is almost over and like every job I have ever had I am getting sad. It is hard to get so attached to these little ones and then have to watch them grow up and leave you. I have finally gotten to a place where I don't cry thank goodness. I remember my first day care job, you would have thought someone had died and I hated that job!

This has been a tough year. I have had intervention all year and they have drained me. I have asked not to teach intervention next year. I need some time off. They are so needy and dependent on me for everything, I am not only their teacher but their counselor and their cheerleader and sometimes their mother. It has been a year and I have been looking forward to the end. But this morning it hit me as it aways does that I will miss them terribly and that I love my job for better or for worse!

We Win!!!

Today I got the biggest trophy ever! Okay, I didn't get it, the golf team did and it probably isn't the biggest one ever. But it is big! We are very excited we won the city championship and took first and second in the individual places also!

The kids have really worked hard and practiced a lot more than the other teams to get as far as they did. I am really proud of the effort they put in. We had a lot of parent support this year too which is really helpful.

Only 14 days left and 15 until we fly home yaaaaaa!!!!

The Switch

One day last week I called a student over to my desk and asked him to read me something. What I had was something written in Spanish that I had taken from another student and I wanted to know what it said. He gives me this confused look and says "I don't know". I said, "OK, no big deal. I just wanted to know what it said because I can't read the Spanish" He shook his head and said "Oh, it's in Spanish, let me see" and he read it to me and explained it to me perfectly. I laughed and said do you have a switch?

It's so true though, most of my kids are bilingual and I have never spent much time thinking that it may be confusing for them. But it's true. They have to tell themselves which language to think in and speak in. To me it looks so easy for them but the more I think about it the more I think it must be difficult at times.

On a happy note - My shoulder didn't hurt one time this week thanks to yoga. I went to get a massage on Saturday and had nothing to complain about so I got an overall massage. Arcy said there was no inflammation in my back for the first time on almost 2 years! Such good news! Yoga seems to be the cure for right now at least.

19 Days

That's how many days are left of school and we here at the middle school couldn't be happier. I still have not signed my contract - I have until the 2nd of June, a full 30 days after I got it. They keep sending these e-mails asking that we turn them in. I think they are fearing the worst - that we will all walk out on the last day and not come back. I will sign mine and I will come back for one more year because I said I would and I am too poor to move right now.

I will keep hoping that next year will be better and in lots of ways it will. I will have one more year under my belt and be that much better of a teacher. It will give me time to figure out where I want to go next and to really research some districts. There is so much that is different between districts. It is weird because the federal government expects so much but the accountability really isn't there across districts.

Anyone, the point is I am looking forward to summer break and a new start in the fall!

A long time!

I know it has been a long time, sorry, time has really flown these past few weeks! Here are the highlights:

1. Jamee had Olivia who is beautiful and healthy!
2. Grandpa is finally starting treatment and getting out of the house a bit more
3. Two good friends have arrived home safe from Iraq
4. My students are fidgety and ready to be done for the summer, as am I
5. We bought plane tickets for summer break and get to be in Michigan for 23 days!!!!!!
6. I took my first online class, unofficially through Sarah, it was hard!
7. I found a new neurologist here in Yuma and he is very knowledgeable which is fantastic!
8. I have been continuing with Yoga and I really enjoy it - especially the dead bug pose:-)
9. My friend Shannon is moving to Tuscon and that makes me sad:-(
10. I had to break up a bloody fight and got blood on my pants, which got me thinking about going to self-defense school
11. It is HOT in Yuma now, summer has arrived!


That's what I have been up to, what about you? I will post more frequently now that things are winding down.

Shock and Awe

Monday was an exciting day in my room. One of my students almost killed them self and tried to kill the rest of us. Two of them, a boy and a girl, came up with a fantastic idea to put a gum wrapper in the electrical socket and see what would happen. What happened was a big burst of light came out and almost started a fire, there was a loud noise that brought other teachers running and my kids screaming and Daniel got a shock that knocked him out of a chair.

This was very scary but I had my calm teacher persona on and seemed very unrattled on the outside, inside it took me 2 hours to get my heart rate back down. Thank God no one was injured and nothing was damaged. Daniel learned a big lesson and now his mother is coming to school with him to make sure he is making sure he is behaving.


Today was another exciting chapter in my book as a student brought a joint to school and concealed it in her makeup case. Some students ratted her out and I tipped the police officer who searched her and found it. She was subsequently arrested and taken to juvenile hall where whe will be held until her parents pick her up. I won't be seeing her for a while that's for sure!

Animals Fighting

Yesterday Sarah and I went to get a pedicure. We only budget this in once and a while but it is a lot of fun and it is nice to have pretty toes seeing as though all we wear are sandals. There are many, many places to go in Yuma but we have our favorite at the mall. This is not that convenient because the mall is always packed and we inevitably see kids there but the people there are great and they know us so we go there.

Back to yesterday, we go in, choose our colors and sit down. Ready to relax from a long day of studying and homework from Sarah's online course. Just as my feet get wet the yelling starts. I am used to not understanding what is being said by the family. Everyone that works at the nail place is related, I have known them since they opened the shop. All of a sudden three people are screaming at each other and it just kept getting louder and louder. They didn't take it outside or in the back, they were standing right in front of us! Sarah later described the sound like animals fighting in the forest or something. It was awful. The women working on our feet just kept going like nothing was happening. Apparently they thought if we couldn't understand them it was OK.

Then this one girl starts crying and another has red marks on her arms. I recognize these marks because I have seen them when girls fight at school. There was obviously some kind of physical encounter before we arrived. The screaming lasted a couple of minutes and then it was very awkwardly quiet for a few minutes.

All the while a new person to the shop is sitting out in the waiting area. I have never seen him before but it is obvious he belongs to the family as he is Vietnamese and doesn't appear to speak English. The weird thing was that he started talking very quickly and didn't stop for about 20 minutes. He wasn't talking to anyone in particular. At first I thought maybe he was on a phone or ear piece. But no, he was staring into space speaking very loudly and the women helping us kept laughing at him. Although it is not clear at this point, since my Vietnamese is limited to a student we have a school that I have heard speak on two occasions and my time in the nail salons, I am led to believe he is a crazy cousin they have been forced to take in. This could be where the fight stemmed from.

It was a very surreal moment and we got out in a hurry. I felt like I was watching a "story" on Telemundo but at least there I can understand the plot because I can pick up some of what is being said.

Homesick

Today I found myself feeling a little homesick. This doesn't happen much since Sarah moved here because whenever I need a lift she's right there to be sarcastic in person:-) But today we went to lunch at Julies and had a great afternoon with her, her husband and her two kids. Now, I know this does not seem connected but it is. Some of my best memories are of sitting at my parent's or my grandparent's or a friends or relatives home and sharing a meal, conversation, laughter and checking in.

That old saying of when it rains it pours is really true. There has been so much going on lately and now to hear of a friend who has been going through a terrible couple of months on top of everything else, sometimes I really ask why?

It seems like the bad is never ending, there is always something worse coming our way. Someone else is sick, someone else has died. Someone has been fired, is moving, is is is....But then today on a quiet Sunday afternoon with friends. Sharing a simple meal and good conversation I was reminded that no matter how much bad is thrown at us it will never be more than the good because there is always someone to make you feel at home.

My homesickness will go away, it is only 8 weeks before I get to see everyone so that is helping. But beside that I know that God is taking care of things.

I know that was a bit rambly but it is what came out of my brain tonight. Have a great week!

A Monday to be remembered

This is a Monday that will not soon be forgotten. We have too many days like that now. Too many days that people do unspeakable things to other people for a bad, wrong, or no reason at all. The people who were sitting in class today didn't ask to be remembered but they will be. By cell phone cameras and recordings, by eyewitness accounts. By pictures we will undoubtedly see on television in the days that follow. These people will be remembered because one person wanted to be seen and heard. How sad. That the many should suffer at the hands of one.

We have become such a desensitized society that numbers don't haunt us like they should. The number of soldiers killed in Iraq and Afghanistan the last few years alone should be enough to incite riots and protests to bring those left standing home safely to their families. But those numbers are too big. We are used to the big numbers. Strange how it is the smaller numbers that get us. When the death toll kept rising today people got more and more upset and outraged and wanted action against the university. The fact is the university couldn't have stopped what had happened. It was tragic and it happened. I don't think placing blame and pointing fingers will help. The families need to feel love and support and to know that their child will be remembered however tragic this incident.

I thought back today to the night of the fire in my dorm in college and how we stood outside and watched it burn through the windows. We knew fear that night. But not life and death fear like the students today. That night, at 2 a.m. I called my parents collect to tell them what had happened and that I was OK. I have never heard more relief in my mother's voice than I did that night when I had made it to my aunt's safely. I kept thinking today how horrible it must have been for every single person who knew someone at Virginia Tech University today to have that moment, minutes, hour or hours of not knowing that relief.

My prayer tonight is that the families know where their children are and that this violence that seems to sweep across our world and desensitize us to horrible things will end. That it will become so intolerable that people won't stand for it anymore.

Summoned

I have been summoned to appear before the Superior Court Clerk because I did not return my jury selection form. I did. They say it must have gotten lost in the mail so I have to go on April 26th and fill out the paper work again. The good that came out of this was that I was forced to call the courthouse and ask them about postponing our month of service and they were very flexible. So now we can go home and then go to Texas to see the baby Brick #3 and the others Bricks of course! Now we are getting really excited, 8 weeks to go!

Wednesday

Today is a big day, the most important day of 7th grade for the students. We started the AIMS test. Today they are writing an essay to prove their writing skills. This is a challenge for many of them as they are second language learners and they have to sit still for 2 and a half hours to do it. But I was optimistic. Emphasize the WAS.

Because of new security regulations we have to have the students sign in each morning and I explained this and showed them where to sign in on the sheet next to their name. Then I passed around the paper. When I got it back every single student, all 21 of them had signed next to their name, under the right column the word Wednesday. I am no longer optimistic. I am sure one day I will look back and laugh. But today as I sit quietly pondering wether or not to return to this job in August I am not amused.

:-)

Vacation ended well, in fact so well I have been devising ways to not have to go back to work. I know it is inevitable but maybe just a few more days of fun... I finally got the insurance mess straightened out and they sent me my medicine, thank God! Grandpa's sickness has a name. We are all a little frightened about the future but I know God is taking care of him and I am remaining positive that the treatment will progress well.

We started taking Yoga and I sprained my wrist, not my fault really. It is the same one I broke last year when my bicycle was hit by a car. The urgent care Dr. said it is not broke and needs rest so I have a brace and it will be fine. Other than that I loved yoga and I only fell once. The instructor said I was flexible! I even bought a yoga mat to take with me. It has extra padding so my knees won't be so angry with me now.

Not alot of other news to share. AIMS test is this week so the kids will be on edge but lots of planning time for me! I hope everyone has a good week and those of you having bad weather, take solace in this. We are supposed to have a sand storm during golf practice Wednesday which is when we are supposed to take the team picture, see our weather isn't perfect either!

So you've had a bad day

I had a bad day. Yep, even on vacation it happens. Things have been going well but today I had to do real world stuff like deal with the insurance company and the fact that my right arm was going numb and hurting really bad all at the same time and other various unpleasant things like going to the post office for the second day in a row ( we all now how fun this is for me).

I got into my massage therapist who is recommending yoga and whatever else I can do to relax because she is afraid I am going to explode or something soon. Then I had to go to Walgreen's for a prescription that my insurance company is holding hostage. All the while I am calling the insurance company's special injection service to get my injections sent out that they are saying I can't have. This is all very stressful and before you know it I am in tears yelling obscenities at the Walgreen's pharmacist who doesn't speak English very well. Let's add that to the list of places I should no longer go without Sarah.

I know this all underlying stress because we are waiting, something we are not good at for my parents to call. They had a meeting with my grandpa's Dr. today to find out about the biopsy and the bone cancer and all that. I guess maybe I should take up yoga.

So now I am going to scrapbook some pictures that I have had since I moved to Yuma, that always de-stresses me. Love to all, keep the prayers going up.