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If I live to be 1000--and how cool would that be??--I will never understand how people think that paying working folks $25/hour is bankrupting the country. No. What is bankrupting the country is the folks on top wanting more, more, more. If we pay the guy who actually makes the cars $10/hour, then Maxwell the Corporate Suit can someone earn 1% more in his annual seven figure bonus. Yeah I know that's simplistic, sue me. That's how I see it. (And I'm sorry but standing your ass on the line all day, putting fenders on Fords is a HELLUVA lot more difficult than prancing around in your corner office all day. Yeah I know you have huge decisions to make, my Brooks Brothers friends, but at least you are sitting down and can piss whenever you want to)
But more than the money/benefits/workers' rights, we need to consider the social ramifications of busting unions. Jeff & I are watching The Wire on Netflix and we are in season two, which deals with the longshoremens' union. Beyond some weird shenanigans and drama (dude, it's a TV show! They aren't going to make a TV show about the Detroit Federation of Teachers who just kind of sit there and work with teachers), there is a larger issue--the social one. For many blue collar workers, this is their place to belong and know they'll be taken care of in an emergency. Most people want to belong to something larger than themselves either for protection, friendship, strength in numbers, whatever, right? We see it in the inner cities with gangs, in colleges with sororities (Chi Omega here!), in guilds, Knights of Columbus, Kiwanis Clubs, neighborhood block groups, whatever. I certainly do not want to paint all blue collar workers with the same brush, but I'm sure many of them (like my dad and his buddies, anyway) ain't joining no Optimist Club. Instead, they have their bar they all go to, the union hall, the sense of camaraderie and belonging.
What happens to these guys when the unions are gone? Watching this season of The Wire makes me wish that I had their union in my life. I wish we all did, to tell the truth.
I think another thing to remember is that before collective bargaining, mass strikes, unions? Yeah, we had a 60 or 80 hour work week. So the next time you are driving Up North on Friday, think about that. And the next time your kid doesn't go off to the mill for her 13 hour day, consider that the labor unions helped end child labor. Read the book Sea Glass by Anita Shreve for a glimpse of what those jolly days were like. Labor forces also helped set the standard of employer paid health care. So when you go to your doctor and only pay a $10 co-payment, please think of this.
The for-profit charter movement is a perfect example of what happens when management is given unfettered control and is just out to make a buck because let's face it--that's what they are out to do. They want to make themselves the most possible money. Don't kid yourselves.I'm a teacher and, at least until May 17 when our "Emergency Financial Manager" makes a paper hat out of my contract, in a union. Compared to non-unionized teachers, my pay (right now) is considerably higher. Unionized teachers top out anywhere between $70k-85k in many districts where charter teachers might see mid-$40ks after 20 years (if they don't get fired because the principal has a bad day, of course). We also have good benefits, a pension, sick days, guaranteed lunches. Isn't that fucking pathetic? I need a contract to guarantee my 45 minute lunch break but I do need it because charter teachers often have to eat lunch with the kids. Because of a teacher surplus (created by universities and colleges that keep cranking them out, year after year--don't get me started!), the charters know that they can fire their teachers and have 20 more lined up the next day to take the job.
Lest you think I'm a big labor homer, I will say this...yeah, it sucks that our custodian can't change the lightbulb because the contract says only engineers can do that. And yeah, the nasty teacher who sits on her fat ass and eats Doritos all hour while I try to help the kids...yeah, she pisses me off, too. (But you can fire her...the principal just needs to show cause, which is not hard to do). And sure, there are some folks who take advantage of the system.
But let me say this--at the end of the day, I'd rather be unionized than not. I took a sick day today because I wasn't feeling well. I know that, when I return tomorrow, I will have my classroom and job. When I was in the private sector legal field, I couldn't say that with confidence. When I was in the legal field, and I had bosses masturbating in their offices and paying me less because of my vagina and not giving me vacation and not letting me leave even though I had nothing to do and threatening to let me go every day, I would have killed for a union. I was so jealous of people who were in unions that I'm sure I said a lot of the things people are saying now. I regret that. But here is what I say now and I will say it until I die--until I can trust management to pay me equally, to respect my rights, to care about my safety, to not fire me at a whim, to not harass me, to understand that I may need a sick day or two...until then, I'll take my union.
- Mood:
bouncy
What I got….
Hi. I’m a special education teacher in the inner city and here is what I got.
I got a teaching job which is almost as hard as winning Survivor or marrying the Bachelorette or whatever. Okay maybe not THAT hard, but getting a public school teaching job is tough. It always has been, folks tell me, as there has never been (and likely never will be) a teacher shortage
But I’ve got a great job! I’ve got…
*A killer schedule. I think the teachers do ourselves a disservice when we complain about the job. Let’s be honest—we get 10 weeks off at summer, 2 weeks at Christmastime, 1 week mid-February and one week at Easter. For some reason, teachers love to yell and scream about how much we work. I’m not sure how that got started but I’ll tell you, you can’t beat this schedule! I think we need to embrace the schedule rather than trying to defend it.
*A job with a guaranteed lunch break and prep/planning hour. Not all jobs have that.
*A job that allows me to use my creativity and can often be a lot of fun.
But here’s what else I got….
*Kids whose basic needs aren’t met. Remember Maslow’s hierarchy of needs? Yeah, me neither. But I know that you needed food, clothing, shelter in order to move on and be satisfied in life. If our school doesn’t feed some of them breakfast, then they don’t eat. When some of the kids’ bus is late and they miss breakfast, I have to track down the (very kind and lovely) lunch ladies to get cereal or a breakfast bar and milk. In the past, I’ve bought socks for kids and made sandwiches to bring home. Because if your basic needs aren’t met, how the hell can you remember your 9s times tables?
*Kids with no prior knowledge. I remember my parents talking to me when I was a kid. I know that I went into school I was, if not precocious, I at least had prior knowledge of things. If a teacher said something like, “give me a break!”, I knew that you didn’t literally want to break something. If a teacher referenced the wider world, I could usually catch on. Kids in my school don’t have that. They have no idea about well-known books, songs, movies. They don’t know simple figures of speech. They’ve never read a book before they started school and no one is around to help with homework. And when your teacher is trying to teach math, like I was today, and when I said, “I know this sounds cheesy guys but….”, half the kids thought that I meant literal cheese.
*Learning issues. The 6th grade teacher at my school is very nice but admittedly knows nothing about math. Since four kids on my caseload are in that class, I have taken to going in and teaching math to the whole class. Of 25 kids (only 4 of whom are identified “special needs”), at least 20 are completely lost on any given day. Fortunately, I am patient and trained in special education methods so I go slowly and break it down to step by step by step (sometimes even reviewing basic addition facts). If I tried to just do a lesson, I would maybe reach 4 or 5 of them…the others literally need step by step instruction, every single day. I know it wasn’t like this when I was coming up, so what the hell happened?
*Schools of Choice. It is no secret that I don’t abide anything other than the old school public school (taxes pay)/private school (parents pay) model. None of this charter school, academy bullshit. I hate how they make money off of the backs of students, don’t pay their teachers, kick out troubled or special needs kids but the thing I hate most is how they give too much choice to people who can’t handle it. Choice is great—too much choice is not. We have kids who are on their third school this year. Reasons for moving the kids range from not liking a particular teacher (you aren’t going to like everyone—make it work), the kid was getting “picked on” (who didn’t? I stood up for myself or ignored it and it stopped and it only made me stronger), the kid didn’t like the school (who does?), the school started too early (????), they just didn’t “like” the school, the school wasn’t a “good fit”…lookie here. Life isn’t a good fit—it’s about making it work. You aren’t going to like your boss or your job and you might OMG get picked on. Whatcha gonna do? Quit? Then what? And yeah, yeah, I hear my friends with kids saying that they would move their kid if it was getting picked on or bullied but dude, this happens all over. The answer is to address it, not to run from it—otherwise, it will never stop. How does it help a kid for him or her to always be the new kid, always scrambling to meet people, make new friends, catch up? And for us teachers, we are on the spot knowing that if we tell parents the truth (your kid is failing, for example, or the kid needs to be suspended) and they get mad, they can easily move the kid. That happens too much and the school shuts down. How do I teach under those circumstances?
*Absences. In my day, we had 10 absences per year, excused or not. When I turned 18, I took great advantage of being able to sign myself out of school and left 5th hour one too many times such that, if I skipped the day of Prom (as I had planned to do), I would fail the class (despite my B average). So I had to haul my ass up on the day of Prom, go to 5th hour and then dash off for hair and nails and make up. Now? Doesn’t matter. Kids have to stay home to babysit or because they are moving again or because they just don’t feel like going. Our truant officer can go out to the house but all you have to do is…
*Tell ‘em your homeschooling. We have the most lax homeschooling laws in the Midwest, if not the nation. I had a kid whose mom (who, by the way, was making $108,000 tax free dollars for adopting five kids) was on the run from CPS and pulled her kids. When I sent the truant officer to her home, all she said was, “I’m homeschooling” and there wasn’t a thing we could do. (Oh, and her idea of “homeschooling” was to lock the five kids in the house for a year and a half with no education, no medical care and inadequate nutrition). In Michigan, you don’t need a clean criminal record, a degree, a lesson plan or anything other than being able to say “I’m homeschooling” and then, when the kid turns 18, you can even give them a diploma. Now pretend we had “homedoctoring” where the “doctor” didn’t have to have a degree or anything and could, in fact, perform surgery just by saying, “I’m homedoctoring.”
*No stability. Kids who move every four months, kids who have “uncles” in and out of the house, kids with revolving doors for family members to come in and crash. I tend to walk around school and smile at kids. I know it sounds, well, cheesy, but I have no idea what is going on in their home and I might be the nicest person they see all day. Sometimes I look at the girls and wonder if they are being raped by mom’s boyfriend of the week or if they are so desperate for male attention (from lack of a dad) that they will jump into bed and have unprotected sex with the first guy who waves at them. Then I look at the boys and wonder if they see their mom giving it up to any guy who walks by, squeezing out kid after kid with man after man and how that affects the way they see women. I look at all of them and wonder if they see their mom getting beaten up and called “bitch” and how that will affect their future relationships. I look at the pretty girls in the 6th grade class that I work with and I want to just beg them to not have a baby until they are at least 30.
*Kids who were born addicted to crack, alcohol, weed or any combination thereof. I am here to tell you that when you are born addicted, something is always going to be wrong. You will have problems of some sort your whole life. Since your mom lost custody of you at birth, you have that issue to deal with too and, 999 times out of 999, your dad wasn’t anywhere around so there’s that too. That’s where I come in. Somehow, I have to help these kids understand and learn. They may not be able to see or read letters backwards or can’t hear or can’t remember numbers or have trouble walking or can’t retain information for longer than a minute, but I have to do what I can do for them. I will love them to pieces and will do anything I can for them, but I can’t be their mom. I will say “I love you” back and will bring in cookies and will give hugs and wipe tears but I can’t be their mom because their mom is some crack addict whore who should have her tubes forcibly tied around her neck. But I’ll do what I can.
*Kids who are being raised by folks who are in it for the check. Parents and guardians of kids with special needs get checks from the government. There are many, many arguments for and against this but I’m not here to debate that. I’ve seen anything from $550 per month up to $9,000 per month for adopting five “special needs” kids. The kids don’t see this money and SSI will only cut the check—they won’t check up to see how it’s being spent or if the kid even still has special needs (found this out when another teacher called SSI to report a guardian who wouldn’t take the kid in for a doctor appointment). For at least one guardian, this isn’t enough to take the kids to a free eye doctor appointment to get free glasses for kids whose vision would be almost perfectly corrected if they had glasses. So because they don’t have glasses, I enlarge their work, rewrite it with a thick marker or find magnifying glasses for them.
*Parents who never got the memo that when you have a kid, shit changes. When I graduated from college, I knew that my days of sleeping in until 11 were over. Because, you see, graduation was a Life Change. Some parents don’t get that. There are far too few dads, period. While I’m here, I’d like to communicate one thing to women—just because you can have a baby without a steady man (pref. a husband) in your life, doesn’t mean you should. And please, there’s no need to get back to the club and breeding the moment the afterbirth expels. This man isn’t going to stick around/marry you/be your Wallet so you can quit work/save you. And guys, please stick around or else wrap it up. I have seen kids with two parents (gender doesn’t matter) and without two parents and with two parents is almost always better.
*Kids who are in the sixth grade and can’t read or write, kids in the 8th grade who are 15 and 16 years old and can’t remember the steps to long division let alone how to figure out a probability problem, kids whose parents don’t speak or write English and can’t help them with homework, kids who have had meningitis, TB, lead poisoning, brain infections, brain tumors, brain cancer and ass whuppins hard enough to leave marks that were the worst I’ve ever seen. I have software that I can’t get loaded on my computer because no one from the Help Desk will come out or else I can’t afford the software that I desperately need. I have kids in foster care and 11 year olds being raised by 44 year old grandmas and kids with alcoholic moms and kids whose moms write me notes saying “Dis is so and so’s mom and dis is no write what he done” and kids whose brothers are in jail and kids who yell “I love you Ms. Smith” and who give hugs and say “I love you” after I talk to them for two minutes on the stairs even though we’ve never seen each other before and kids who jump up and down because they finally get a math problem and kids who come to school in clean and pressed uniform clothes even though our school is falling apart and has a burned out house across the street and gang graffiti all over and kids who drag me over to see their science fair posterboard and kids who ask ME how I’M doing even though I’ve got the great life and great job and they got nothing.
I’m any special education teacher in any inner city school district and that’s what I’ve got.
B - Bed size: Queen sized sleigh bed
C - Chore you hate: cleaning my house
D - Don’t eat: meat that is not well done
E - Essential start-your-day item: pee
F - Favorite board game: Monopoly. I'm good with money
G - Gold or Silver: Gold wedding rings, silver necklace
H - Height: 5'8"
I - Instruments you play: skin flute (ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha I love myself)
J - Job title: Special ed teacher
K - Kid(s): fuck no
L - Love or lust: both
M - Mom’s name: Judith
N - Nicknames: Pooh Bear, whatever the kiddos call me when I'm not standing right there
O - Overnight hospital stay other than birth: asthma attack at age 12
P - Pants or pantyhose: pants
Q - Favorite Movie Quote: soooo many, from Caddyshack, Office Space, Animal House, Breakfast Club, Pulp Fiction
R - Right or left handed: Right.
S - Siblings: none!
T - Time you wake up: 6:15 if I am Jazzercising, 6:45 if we have staff meeting, 7:45 regular school day, around 10 on non-school days
U - Underwear: cute cotton ones, often try to match with what I'm wearing :)
V - Vegetable favorite: I am not at all a veggie fan but will eat corn without too much complaining
W - Ways you run late: I'm lazy and don't want to get up
X - X-rays you’ve had: many lung ones plus a head CT years ago
Y - Yummy food you make: biscuits, mac'n'cheese, meatloaf, cookies, baked goods
Z - Zoo favorite: polar bears
- Mood:
happy
There are some songs that remind me of summer, no matter what time of year I listen to them. Some are obvious, such as Summer Breeze (by Type O Negative or Seals & Croft) or School's Out by Alice Cooper. In fact, I cannot listen to School's Out until about May. Cruelly, this year is played on Sirius Classic as I backed out of my driveway on September 9th or 10th. But others require some explanation, so....
1) Heatwave. Okay yeah, I know this song has the word "heat" right up in the title, but there is a more fun reason why. My 10th grade bff, Myla, and I discovered the joys of the bulk candy store near our homes. Naturally, we packed those little bags as full as we could and ate it all in one night that she slept over at my house. I'm sure we were like little squirrels on meth, bouncing around as if we had springs attached to our asses. At some point, we put on my record player (yes folks, this was 1987 or 1988; I didn't get my first CD player until 1991) and put on my record (ibid) of the song Heatwave. We hopped around like the fools that we were and probably wore the record right out. Now, I must confess that I'm not 100% positive that it was summertime when we did this. However, in my brain it was summer and so that makes this song qualify for this list.
(While I'm on the subject, the things one remembers--and are POSITIVE about--are interesting to me. For instance, I swear to God that a friend of mine in college had a radio show that started at 12:01am just so he could play the unedited version of the song Asshole. When Jeff & I met my friend and his wife for dinner a few years ago, my friend had no memory of this and swore it wasn't him. So who is to say that the sleepover happened and exactly when and how I said it did?)
2) The "10th grade song" trifecta. For some reason, I have extremely fond memories of my 10th grade year. Couldn't really tell you why except that it was my first year of high school and things were brand shiny new. Probably because of this, I have very fond memories of what I call "10th grade songs", which were songs that came out (or at least were new to me) circa 1987/1988. In fact, during my Adrian College DJ years, I would play these songs and always start reiminiscing about the 10th grade songs to the point that my radio partner, completely exasperated, turned to me and said, "Patti, they're ALL tenth grade songs to you. And they can't ALL be tenth grade songs!" Well, she was probably right but still. Here are three that strike a note of summer in me:
a. "Pour Some Sugar On Me" by Def Leppard. I distinctly remember my same BFF mentioned earlier and I went a joy ridin one day in the summer of 1988. Of COURSE we drove by the house of the doofus I had a crush on (couldn't tell you his name to save my life so let's call him ABC.) Giggling and probably about to pee our pants, Myla & I drove by ABC's house a number of times and went back for one more loop when OMGWTFBBQ HOLY FUCKING SHIT the boy himself came walkin round the corner. I distinctly remember saying, in only the way a 16 year old girl with a crush can say, "What do I do? What do I do?" and Myla saying, "I don't know but turn the car! Turn the car!" And this was the song that was on the radio that fine summer day.
b. "Make Me Lose Control". Okay this is a douchey LAME song and I realize that, but it was on the radio a lot that summer.
c. "Wait" by White Lion. Yeah, I know it's a hair band. Yeah, I know they suck hard. But my first friend to have a car, Alicia (not to be confused with my summer of 12th grade BFF, Aliecia), came by to pick me up so that we could go to her house and work on a science project (measuring the Ph of acids and bases, IIRC). We of course decided to get some ice cream or something and ended up just driving round the fine cities of Troy & Sterling Heights. This song was on the radio. I have no idea why I remember this--and indeed at the time, probably never would have guessed that I would have remembered this 20+ years later--but I do.
3. Just about any Van Halen song. Seriously, aren't their songs MADE for summer? Not just Ice Cream Man, Beautiful Girls and Summer Nights, but just in general? Whenever I hear a VH song, I immediately want to be on my back patio, in warm weather, with a bunch of friends, drinking beer.
4. Southern Cross by C, S & N (or CSN&Y, whatever). This song specifically reminds me of the summer of 1997, or as I call it, The Summer of the Bar Exam. That was a shitty fuckin summer in some ways. I had this cool internship that, like all internships, paid at the poverty level. And I had to study for the Bar, which was the 5th hardest Bar in the country at the time (not sure about now). Since I, like an idiot, went to law school in Wisconsin where you are automatically on the Bar just by graduating, I knew NOTHING about Bar exams. Imagine MY surprise when I graduated in December of 1996 (after the two worst years of my life thus far...imagine an extrovert being forced into being an introvert--the horror) and came home to find out that before I could even APPLY for most jobs, I had to be a member of the Bar. So I had to hustle to get registered, take prep classes and get time off of my internship to prepare. For some reason, I heard the song "Southern Cross" a lot on the radio. The line "and we never failed to fail...it was the easiest thing to do" resonated with me because I fully expected to fail the fuckin thing (I didn't btw, I passed!!) Every time I would hear the song, I would jam up that line. It also reminds me of my friend Wade, with whom I studied for the Bar and who I guess was my BFF that summer (are you seeing a pattern here?). We had as much fun as one could studying for that damned thing.
5. Crush by Dave Matthews. Let me start by saying that I hate DMB. Douchebags, douchebags every where and the world did sink. Yuck. Total tools they are. But I heard this song in the summer of 1999 and didn't know who it was by (this was before Sirius told you ever song and artist). And this of course was the summer that I fell in love with Jeff! And I had quite the crush on him and in fact, emailed him about how much I loved that song and it made me think of him :) I do clearly remember driving to the post office from my law office and getting lost even though I had been there a hundred other times. I had my mind on other things, people!! Having not fallen in love since, this is my last memory of that lovely free-falling crazy silly goofy feeling. So even though I do not abide DMB, I will allow him this song simply because it reminds me of Jeff, who I guessed you'd say became my BFF for life!
So I think what I'm really saying is that I need summer BFFs! Who wants the job?????
- Mood: happy
1) Jazzercise likes to take songs and fuck with them. Well, I guess other artists do the fucking but I hear them at Jazzercise and every once in awhile, I want to gnaw off my own foot and beat someone with it. Case in point, the Jazzercise DVD I was jazzing to. It has a song from Alan Parson's Project called "Where Do We Go From Here?". It's, um, jazzed up and I've never heard the original but I can tell you that the jazzy version is HORRIBLE. At first, I presumed it was about a post apocalyptic landscape (the lyrics say something about "where do we go from here now that all of the children are gone?"). I have to turn the sound down when it comes on my TV because I just picture a barren wasteland, devoid of children, with bare trees and a dark sky and burned out buildings and people aimlessly roaming about and looking for things to eat. You may say I had quite the visceral reaction to this song and you would be right. It doesn't help that the people singing sound like they are being strangled to death by some giant, unseen hand.
2) The second song is another Jazzercise gem but they didn't jazz it up...they just play the regular song. The song is called "Picture" and it's by Kid Rock. I don't like Kid Rock even under the best of circumstances and the day they find him with a belt around his neck, a bottle of Bud in one hand and his dick in the other will be a great day for me. Anyway, I had an extremely visceral reaction to this piece of shit, for reasons I'd rather not go into publicly. But I also had a "want to rip off someone's head and crap down their throat" reaction because the song is so fucking typical! I mean, it is Kid Rock and I don't expect the wisdom of Moses--hell, I'd don't expect the wisdom of the guy sticking his tongue in the electric socket--but it's just bad writing. Look at the lyrics and note how the dude is doing the fun shit (drugs, drinkin' and fuckin') and the woman is experiencing "heart ache and cheap wine". While she's off to church, he's off to drink her away. Couldn't the chick be kinda cool and at least doing some blow?
3) Jazzercise is not to blame for this last song; Sirius Classic Rock is. Some days, it gives me great hope to think that somewhere, Ian Anderson is standing on one leg and playing his flute. That makes me smile, knowing that he is happy. If he's happy, I'm happy. But then I had to hear the song "Cross Eyed Mary" and look up the lyrics. It's not enough that she's a child prostitute, screwing Aqualung and other leching greys, or that her abortionist drops her off at school...no, she's gotta be fuckin' cross eyed, too!!! Jesus Christ, Ian! Go stand on one leg and play your fuckin flute and cheer the fuck up, will you?
So, here is why I say "happy happy joy joy"!
1. Jeff and I celebrated our 10th wedding anniversary on December 1st!! And yes I *did* want us to sing a rousing duet of "Opposites Attract" (but I think the boy parts apply to me more than the girl parts do, except that neither of us likes to smoke). Jeff nixed that idea. Nevertheless, we had a lovely day as we went to the Corner Brewery for dinner and drinks. Some of our friends were there, gathered 'round the fireplace. The brewpub bought us our first round, which was cool. I'm slowly getting used to the new old mug with my name misspelled. I still miss my brown mug terribly but I like to think that, when I die, it will be waiting for me with its big grin and correctly spelled name. Also, it will have neverending beer in it and it won't make me gain weight.
2. Our anniversary party was AWESOME. We blew a 10 gallon keg in about two hours. I guess we know some beer drinkers! Despite the numerous dinner parties I have thrown in my life, I still get that nervous feeling about an hour before things start. Fortunately, people started coming in in droves right after 7:30 and I was so busy that I didn't have time to get nervous. We had our bagpiper (ROCKED!), souvenir shot glasses that said 10 years, Jeff & Patti, souvenir beer mug shaped cookies (I only got part of one but it was good), and our two awesome beers that we brewed. I also put together two boards of pictures of Jeff and me through the years. It was a blast putting those together because I remember some very good times. I did, however, reflect upon how our pictures went digital a few years ago and how different that still is to me. I printed some of the pictures out, but it just wasn't the same. I also trotted out the newspaper from 12/1/00 (still in its original plastic bag and hey guess what? The Lions were still losing!), some stuff from our wedding (napkin with our names on it, invitation, booklet, etc.) One of my friends asked what sort of cake we had at our wedding (it was multi-tiered but the part we fed each other was banana with buttercream frosting). My friend brought along banana cupcakes with buttercream frosting and I coerced Jeff into feeding them to each other. Somewhere on the Interwebz is a picture of this lovely event. We had a DJ and we danced to our wedding song ("Moondance") and couples song ("Let's Stay Together") and did the chicken dance and the hokey pokey and I led the Locomotion around the pub. I learned that random people will give you a high five if you offer it to them. Then we did the schwimm, schwimm song from Oktoberfest that I just love. We also did the Hustle but I was pretty lit up by that time. Pictures of this exist on the Internet, too. We also had a drunk homeless guy try to crash but that is perhaps a story for another day.
3. This school semester has been great AT school but sorta shitty in other areas of life (see previous posts). But I think I hope I have things worked out and back to normal. I certainly have been trying really hard. Like I tell the kids, you can do whatever you want but there will be consequences for whatever you do. (To wit, if you go up and kick the principal, you will get suspended and possibly go to jail. No one actually did that but of course they had to ask me what would happen). I am trying to atone for the consequences of my actions. I was a big huge prick at times and to various people. I figured out that this is because I have no coping skills and never really know how to react to things unless I plan ahead of time. So since I learned how to parallel park finally, I guess my new years resolution will be to learn how to cope. I'm sure the Internet will help me. Anyway, HAPPY HAPPY for putting things back together!! And taking responsibility for things!!! JOY JOY JOY
4. School is winding down! Only 3 more days after today. The bad thing is that as the general education teachers do less, I do less, which bores the shit out of me. I actually like pushing into (most of) the classes with the special ed students. But when they are just sitting around, I end up sitting around too and that is boring.
5. I've had other fun things, besides the anniversary party (but that shit WAS the party of the year!! Like Mainline Society party of the year, bitches!). Jeff & I went to Frankenmuth's Bavarian Inn for Thanksgiving. That whole week is my favorite week of the year, especially because of social goings-on. Ashley's had a beer thing that Tuesday, Arbor had a beer release that Wednesday and we may have spent a few hours at the Frankenmuth Brewery on Thanksgiving Day. Also may have gone to the Bavarian Inn hotel bar that night. Every other Friday has been the usual Whole Foods with the crew. Last Saturday was the Smithee Drinking Night and Krampus event at the Corner. I got to wear my Santa outfit that I bought special. Pictures exist somewhere on the web. Most importantly, Jeffy seems to be having fun at these things, so that is splendid (one of the kids' spelling words this week). I can't wait to stampede (spelling word) out of the building on Friday but I will exhale (spelling word) a sigh of relief at 3:25 on Friday as I leave this mammoth (spelling word) building (last week's spelling word). Btw, one of the words last week was assemble and guess who giggled right along with the 6th graders?
- Mood: happy
2) Elbows and knees healing...knees are yellowy purplish. Scab is almost gone on my elbow.
3) Tire is fixed (did I mention I also had a tire issue? I did)
4) The phone reappeared today. The minute the phone disappeared, I thought that one of my twins might have taken it. My twins R & L have really bonded to me for some reason. R particularly has this love thing going on for me (he's 11 so it's cute, not creepy). He also has used the "five finger discount" on other occasions...taking money for a field trip, taking a girl's snacks, several things. I had thought that this was stuff was in the past; nevertheless I immediately thought that he might have taken it because, knowing how he thinks, he could "call me". (I say this because he always asks me what I did when I went home, if I talked to my friends, what we said, what I had for dinner and so on). So the phone is gone as of last Wednesday. On Thursday, R asked me if I called any of my friends last night. I said, "Funny you should say that...have you seen my phone." He said no.
Well today, I picked up a piece of paper (heavy braille paper that you can't see through) and what do I see? My phone! I knew it wasn't there yesterday because there is a stack of CDs under that piece of paper and I had just gone through them yesterday. So I was chatting with my boy R today and I did a TOTAL Law & Order. I said, "Hey, there's some kid in (our principal's) office saying he saw you with my phone." His face got this weird look on it and he said, "Well, I saw your phone yesterday." I said, "Really? Where?" R said, "Right over there" and pointed to where it was. So I said, "Well when did you see it?" And he started saying, " When I was in here and you were over there and I saw it...." And I said, "Well why didn't you tell me about it?" And he started getting flustered and I said, "Look, I'm still going to love you to pieces and I'm not mad at you but did you borrow my phone?" And he says, "It wasn't like that...I have to tell you later." And I said, "Here's the thing...the phone disappears, you ask me if I've called my friends, the phone shows back up, you seem to know where it was and say you saw it yesterday...I can see you taking it just to have something of mine or thinking you could call me." He was really flustered by now so I said, "Okay, stay here with (my para) and I'll come back and see what's up." I took a nice walk around the building and came back. My para said, "Oh yeah...he feels guilty...tell her what you told me." And R admitted he had "borrowed" it to call me and my friends.
I'm upset about this because trust has been breached. We decided to call home (he begged me not to, knowing a butt tapping and grounding was forthcoming), put him on in-school suspension, have him do some chores at recess and issue me an apology. I'm also going to make it a rule that he's not to be in my room unless I am there. If he is caught in there at any other time, he's suspended. He could have been expelled for this, so it's extremely serious.
I know there there was no nefarious intent underlying this theft, but I am still sad that this kid takes things that don't belong to him. This is the kid who is 11 1/2, reads at a 1st grade level and can barely write. He can't do anything more than 2 digit addition and subtraction. I worry about this kid because his start in life (born addicted to 3 things, vision problems, severe learning disability, tuberculosis at a young age) wasn't great. Now he's basically illiterate and still taking things from people. The future is not at all bright for this kid and there isn't much I can do.
- Mood:
sad
I'ma whine for a few:
In the past week, I've taken a really bad spill at school (on my lunchtime walk), injuring my knees and elbow, my Corner Brewery mug smashed into a million pieces on Saturday, and today, my phone was stolen.
I hope it's true that shitty things happen in 3s and I'm done for awhile!
Last night, I had a dream where my mom went into the hospital. I talked to her on the phone and she was kinda rude to me. Somehow, I ended up at her house with Jeff. We were in the kitchen and I checked her answering machine and we talked on the phone again. There was a bunch of stuff in the middle but I ended up back in time, at Hudsons in Oakland Mall. I had the chance to see what it was like in the 50s (it wasn't around then) and there was something about a beauty salon. Then we were back and I got an email from my mom and tried to call her but couldn't reach her. Next thing, I'm walking out of my old room into the kitchen. Jeff was on the phone and I knew immediately that my mom was dead. Jeff had some papers and he tried to hide them from me but I saw the one on top. It said "Permission to Publish Obituary". Then I asked when she had died and he told me several days ago but no one wanted to tell me. He also said that the doctors had only given her seven days to live but no one had wanted to tell me. I never got to say goodbye. The last thing I remember is freaking out and smashing some pictures that had been on the wall. I woke up absolutely certain that my mom had died. But it was like 4am so I went back to sleep and woke up feeling better.
I have spent life expecting to die before my parents. Given my history of depression/anxiety, this is not an unrealistic thought. Now I don't know and that scares the shit out of me. One day, it isn't going to be a dream.
- Mood:
gloomy
...but every event around this place has to have kids' activities, kids' booths, ways to keep kids entertained. In my day, we entertained ourselves. We didn't need a booth, table, special activities...we went along with our parents, kept our mouths shut (more or less) and were happy to be with our parents, eating, running around or whatever.
At these events, I see parents take their kids to the booths and let them do whatever. Why can't the parents entertain their own damn kids, even just by talking to them? Or how about letting kids know it's okay to be bored? I was bored plenty of times as a kid and it didn't leave any lasting damage. When you are bored, you learn how to deal with yourself. What happens to these constantly catered to, constantly "entertained" kids when they become adults and realize that working f'in sucks and that life is pretty boring?
