Archive for April, 2006

Maybe It’s Gas, But…

…I can’t stop freaking out about this statistics class. Every Thursday afternoon it’s the same thing: pain, doubling over, slightly agitated. It will be over soon.

That’s what I keep telling myself.

When the deputy superintendent beckons you to a meeting about reading data on your district, you go to it. There’s no getting out of it. Ironically, we were reading statistical data on our district and thus began my obsessing about this class that I’m naming this new gray hair for.

This week has been phenomenal in terms of work and it won’t let up soon as we’re in the homestretch of the school year. On Monday when we returned from Spring Break one of our first-year teachers announced in the office, “Only 37 more school days left!”

I used to think in those terms, but I have been teaching long enough to know that you pick your battles, and it’s not the days that get you, it’s something else entirely. I retorted, “That’s two full moons of school left.”

If you work in an industry when the natives get restless during certain times during the month, you’ll appreciate that sentiment.

My busy time right now comes in the form of testing students on a benchmark we use for reading that gives us a correct-words-per-minute number on a 1-minute timed reading. It’s time consuming, but always fun to meet students in a more intimate setting than the classroom. Even the biggest, baddest thugs in the school come to me with their heads lowered and behave well because reading level is personal. They know this. When we began telling them their level in reading there was a shift in ownership of their abilities and they became more responsive.

What? You mean I read at a fourth grade level?!”

I’m never thrilled with the passages that we use, but students do try their best and I report back to their teachers about their scores. We had the lovliest volunteers today. Two church-going ladies who belong to the Red Hat Society. One of whom is a former teacher in my building, so it was a homecoming of sorts. She did fine until Bryan walked in. I tried to be available for him, but was with another student at the time, so she took him.

I heard him arguing with her about the words and the other lady came over to calm him down and they surrounded him in what I can only describe as a coccoon of love and compassion. He’s frustrated that he can’t read well and is also quite a handful for any teacher. Even I, Kelly who believes that students should’t be removed from the classroom, have removed him before when he deters others from learning.

By the time I was finished with my student who was testing (under some stress with the ruckus he was causing) I looked over to see him behaving in a manner quite unlike his normal hyped-up self.

And it gave me a much needed reminder about the students who cross my path every day who are difficult, unruly, without boundaries, and downright little shits on a daily basis:

Remember to love the little children.

It’s not the queasy stomach issues, is it? It’s that I need to do well to continue my work in education so I can watch what love does to the unloved, so I can refresh my compassion and get a fill-up of love for those who need it.

How about a little queasy, gas-inducing mushiness now?

Ok. I love Bryan today. I’ll remind myself of it again tomorrow.

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Fibonacci Doggerel

Cuppa
the Day - I’m lazy today. All of my coffee was bought from change found
in the bottom of my purse and the crumpled dollars from my pockets. A
house latte from Panera started off the school day. It had been a long
time since I had one and it was good. After school I met a friend and
studied (excuse me here, I just threw up a bit in my mouth)… statistical research at
Panera AGAIN and had a mocha freeze sans whipped cream and syrup. I
deserved the whipped cream, but my hips did not so I spared them.



I’m so embarrassed by something that’s recently happened with our
school board that I’m physically ill. However, I don’t know what line I
would be crossing if I spilled all the details on my blog so I must be
very careful. There are probably too many colleagues reading this
anyway, and I don’t want to alienate anyone or get into trouble. The
last thing I need is to be dooced for writing about my district.

This much should be safe: a recent election of a school board member to
the presidency has brought about allegations of racism and I just
watched the meeting on public access cable. The audience members,
parents and educators and members of our local NAACP, were completely
out of control and shouted at one another and failed to follow protocol.

I can only offer these Fibonacci Haiku as a response to it:

School
needs
a swat
for adults
who behave badly
and set examples for students

We
can’t
allow
perceptions
to overtake our
mouthing off or having tantrums

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Turn Back Now

Cuppa the Day - I don’t deserve such kindness, but a certain someone sent me coffee from Africa. That Flying Purple Moose wanted me to have her Tanzanian coffee so badly that she sent it from Africa. AFRICA! I’m not worthy of such international hospitality and it’s questionable whether or not I deserve domestic hospitality, but she did it. She’s awfully nice and she got my taste buds jumping this morning with this spicy Spanish blend which has this unique taste THAT I CANNOT PLACE. What is that taste? I smelled and smelled and tasted and tasted and can’t come up with it. Tell me, aak, what that is! Don’t make me fly all the way to Dar es Salaam just to find out. For now, we’re going with “WOW.” That’s it. I had Wow Coffee this morning.

In an effort not to harp too much on a day gone bad, I’m going to list all the good things that have happened to me recently:
  1. My website is almost ready and I’m going to post pictures soon of a Cuppa the Day t-shirt that is fairly lame, but I designed it so what do you expect?
  2. Siobhan is creating a new design for this site that just rocks my world because it’s so cool. To get an idea, you can go to this site and watch these people make awesome art with coffee. There will be a major overhaul here soon and I won’t have nearly as many links so if you want to mark something, do it now.
  3. The Caffeinated Librarian made me an awesome birthday cd which I’ve been grooving to since last Saturday. My favorite rump shaker song so far? “Shake Senora” by Harry Belafonte. I nearly drove off the road trying to dance in the car to that.
  4. Ron sent me a postcard from Morocco. MOROCCO. I have to capitalize these things because they are that amazing to me.
  5. My feet smelled really good today and that’s a really upsetting story that cost me about $100. If you’re confused about it, go here.

The title should have warned you, but at least I didn’t gripe about all the crappy things that happend today concerning work and the papers I have to write before Thursday, so forgive this entirely lame post, but I promised to publish the best Mocha’s Magical Kingdom entries and after all THIS IS MY STUPID LITTLE BLOG.

  • There are trees, but no shade.
  • There is jello, but no fruit cups.
  • There is pizza, but no calzones.
  • You can give a speech, but you can’t talk.
  • There are crosses, but no churches.
  • (in honor of Easter and my friend, Joe) There are Peeps, but no chickens.
  • You can weep, but you can’t cry.
  • There are roosters, but no hens.
  • There are irritating comments from bloggers and buffoons, but no Steve. (This wouldn’t be a great kingdom without Steve!)
  • There is toffee, but no candy.
  • There are books, but no novels.
  • There are treadmills, but no exercise bikes.
  • (This is my personal favorite) There are boobs and butts, but no fat.

I kind of hinted that this was a good game for school because it helps with spelling. And yes, school and spelling are in the kingdom, too, because they have a double letter in them. There. No more frustration.

And no whining.

There can’t be whining in my kingdom because I don’t like it and I just spared anyone who bothered to read this far.

An episode of Gilmore Girls will put me right. I promise.

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Best Thing I Heard All Day

It was one of those days.

Upon leaving the house for work I decided to apply the perfume in the car because it would also make the car smell good. I dropped the bottle of EXPENSIVE PERFUME on the front porch where it cracked and spilled all over the place. The bad news is that IT IS EXPENSIVE PERFUME. The good news is that it hit my feet and since I was wearing what I call Smelly Sandals it made my feet smell really good, but it was too much and it gave me a headache.

After a long day of meetings I ran into a friend in the parking lot of my final meeting place and we chatted for 45 minutes. After we left the parking lot in our cars she caught up to me at a stoplight and rolled down to window to say, “Look at your calendar and come up with a date for Game Night. It’s been too long.”

I was nodding my head in agreement and before I could answer her she shouted, “Because I crave you.”

Thanks, Lisa. That was a nice way to spend time sitting at a stoplight.

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Mocha’s Magical Kingdom

Cuppa
the Day - Kennimus got in trouble over the weekend. This is evidenced
by two things: 1) the fact that he just kissed my legs before covering
them up and 2) the fact that he made coffee for me two days in a row.
The first day was good and he really was just being nice, but the
second day he did it because he was still trying to kiss up to me. Boca
Java’s Pajama Passion, the one with the flavor added, is quickly
becoming a favorite of mine even when I’m not wearing pajamas. Kennimus Maximus is no longer in trouble with me because he’s just refused to kiss my feet.


Make sure you hop on over to see the Queen of Spain because the contest closes on Monday. I’ve sent in my entry already and after I did so, I hopped on over to BlogHer where I noticed that MSN is a platinum sponsor of the event! Platinum. So that gives it even more credibility, right? Right. Which means you should go. Really. You should.

Have you noticed that I’m doing a lot of hopping? That’s my Easter bunny impersonation.

When my daughter returns from college she brings a lot of things.
Laundry is the primary one, but she also brings home things like her
winter clothes that she no longer needs, art projects which she cannot
possibly house in her cramped space, and all the makeup and hair
products she needs to return to me upon the threat of me coming to her
university and taking it back in front of everyone.

This time, she brought a game with her that irritated THE ENTIRE FAMILY. It was great.

She started with me by walking into my bedroom and proclaiming, “In
Mallory’s Magical Kingdom there are Kenny’s and Kelly’s and Mallory’s,
but no Mason’s and Morgan’s.”

I just assumed she wanted to rid us of her brothers.

She went on and on with this.

There are missiles, but no guns.
There are balls, but no games.
There is glass, but no windows.

Are there dogs and cats, Mallory?
Nope. But there are puppies and kittens!

Is there music?
Nope.

Her dad came home and we played with him for about 35 minutes before he finally got it. He got just as frustrated as did I.

What do you mean THERE ARE COOKIES, BUT NO CAKE OR PIE???
HOW CAN THERE BE WHEELS AND NO TIRES???

You may play Mocha’s Magical Kingdom with me. But you may NOT ruin it
by telling anyone how to play. You may only leave sentences like the
above.

“There are _________, but no _________.”

Wanna play?

Of course, there’s coffee in the Kingdom.

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