1 Vote For Teacher Of The Year

Some time late last week Teach For America was giving out a bunch of Daddy Yankee tickets. Never one to pass up free concert tickets, I snatched up a pair thinking that it would be a pretty good time to see Daddy Yankee in the Rio Grande Valley. However, after further consideration I realized that I did not have a date to go with, nor did I care enough to go see him by myself. So I decided to give the tickets away to one of my students as a reward for the day.

I never looked at the tickets before I gave them to her, but I figured they were probably pretty crappy since they were just free group giveaways. Well, today she walked into class with a big smile on her face and photos in her hand. "Miss," she said, "you didn't look at those tickets, did you?" I shook my head no. "Miss, they were in the 4th row. Right in the center. I was so close I could see his mole!"

Wow, I rock.

The thermometer

at the beach said 92 degrees today, but there was a strong ocean breeze that cooled it off nicely and sent unsuspecting sunbathers chasing after their umbrellas. It looked like there was a storm on the horizon, there was a powerful undertow, a lot of seaweed, and the water was lower and choppier than it has been in the past. Something in me says all this could be explained by a low pressure system sitting off the coast, but I could just be making that up.

Even with all that, the water was still warm and felt great around my body. Down here it seems like all of the elements are personified. The water is strong and smooth and it holds my hand while I tell it about my day. As I let thoughts poor out of my body, that undertow drags them all away and leaves me drained, sitting empty on the sand and talking about sea shells. Even the air is so hot, moist, and heavy that it comes alive. It puts its arms around me, surrounds me, and walks me home at night, then curls up around me in bed and whispers secrets while I fall asleep. It fills the gaps in my space and my mind where you are missing and tells me everything will be okay. You knocked the wind right out of me the first time we touched, but now that wind has come back to me, is filling up my lungs and teaching me how to be whole again.

Hooky

Fetch. Good Boy.

Kite

Thanks

I called my parents today to thank them for caring so much about me. After a series of phone calls with my students' parents (in which one lady told me to call the cops because she didn't want to deal with her son anymore), I realized I should not have taken my own parents' love for granted. We may not always get along, but they have never stopped caring about me.

I have been thinking a lot lately about my own 8th grade teacher. He met me at a very low point, but saw something in me I didn't believe I had. They most amazing thing was that he then he took the time prove to me that it was there.

Earlier today I got a phone call from a friend of mine that I hadn't spoken to or even thought about in quite some time. Although we never really spent much time together, we always saw eye-to-eye and had a real connection and interest in each other. She told me she missed me and wants to schedule a trip down here sometime this winter.

I could go on about many people, but I guess tonight I just want to say thanks to all of my friends and family who care for me and love me. You have made me who I am and I love you.

"Just remember,"

he said to me, "where you go from here is entirely up to you."

"When a body catch a body,
comin' through the rye."

Holden interpreted the line literally, imagining a field of rye at the edge of a cliff, in which children constantly wandered, and that someone had the job of catching any who might fall. Thus, he says that he wants to be the catcher, because it serves a real purpose in a world that is otherwise so often phony/trivial.

Homeward Bound

I wish I was.

This Is The Part Where I Quit My Job

I have training every Saturday (and some Sundays) for the next TWO MONTHS! That means I don't get a weekend for TWO MONTHS. Do you know how long that is to go without a weekend? Yeah! TWO MONTHS! If ever I needed a weekend it was right now. In fact, I would trade all of the other weekends I have ever had if I could just get a couple of days off now. I need a massage, and a beach towel, and a fucking pool boy holding my fucking FRUITY DRINK!

Some days are so long that you accidentally put Sally Hansen Hair Removal Gel Cream on your toothbrush instead of toothpaste.

Yup.

While every line speaks the language of love

It never held the meaning I was thinking of.

The Educators of the Future

Sitting around the team teacher's conference/lunch/work table today, I asked a question about a Spanish slang word that I had been hearing in my classroom. Well, after a couple of loose connections, that topic lead to a discussion in which one teacher brought up the idea of "female sperm." He was convinced, and had everyone else convinced, that females have sperm. It reminded me of that scene in 40 Year Old Virgin where the virgin starts talking about how breasts feel like sandbags. After a few minutes of ridiculousness, Jeremiah and I looked at each other across the table and said in unison "females don't have sperm." After everyone had left the room, I turned to Jeremiah and whispered, "he's never really touched a woman." Oh people...how funny

It's a good life...

when the colour of the night
and all the smoke in one life
gives way to shaky movements,
improvisational skills
in the forest of whispering speakers
let’s swear that we will
get with the times,
in a current health to stay
let’s get friendship right
get life day-to-day
in the forget-yer-skates dream
full of countervailing woes
In diverse-as-ever scenes
proceeding on a need-to-know
in a face so full of meaning
as to almost make it glow

0’ for a good life, we just might have to weaken

and find somewhere to go...

find somewhere to grow

Feelings

One day I woke up and here I was. I was driving down Highway 83 with the river on my right, green fields and palm trees on my left, and a million sparkling dreams in between (theirs, mine and everyone else's). I was a young, confident, 20-something with a couple of things going for her and just enough ambition to work for some other things.

I love my new house. I love that I can create my own space and surround myself with little things that I make beautiful. I can come home exhausted, strip off all of my clothes and fall asleep naked on top of the sheets. I love that (after I have put my clothes on) I can pull up the blinds up in my kitchen and watch the sun set over the trees, fields, fences and department stores of the Valley. I hate standing in that kitchen and cooking for only one person. I hate that I have no one to sit and talk with. I have never been one who really needs sexual interaction with other people (what I do need I can satisfy with a weekend of flirtation), but I have always been a person who needs someone they can feel comfortable with and confide in. I have no one to walk and talk with. I have always had someone like that before.

I love that I have a job with a salary and insurance. I put on professional clothes everyday and show up and try to act like I know what I am talking about. I love the times when I actually do know what I am talking about. I hate that I have no balance in my life. I wake up at 4 in the morning and stay at school working until 6:30 or 7 pm. Then I work some more from home. I hate the feeling that even with those long hours, I am so far behind I will never get caught up. I hate struggling when I am supposed to be leading.