I am gonna be able to pay rent in January 2008 and my Christmas break is going to be a demon hell-ride.
Sshhh.
Now all I have to do is force myself to finish up this end of school madness.
Oh, oh, and Chicago is my new favorite city, Kentucky has beautiful colors, and Memphis has secrets in every single crack of every single brick in every aging house on her streets.
Friday, November 30, 2007
Saturday, November 17, 2007
Arundhati Roy
She writes beautifully. I am a true believer that the things you bring into your life should be right for that time. God of Small Things is right for me right now.
I want to share some of her words because they make sense and have an innocence about them; an innocence that carries wisdom on it's shoulders. William Blake would probably disagree.
"Smells, like music, hold memory. She breathed deep and bottled it up for posterity."
"Memory was that woman on the train. Insane in the way she sifted through dark things in a closet and emerged with the most unlikely ones -- a fleeting look, a feeling. The smell of smoke. A mother's marble eyes. Quite sane in the way she left huge tracts of darkness veiled. Unremembered."
"She hadn't learned to control her Hopes yet."
"Our dreams have been doctored. We belong nowhere. We sail unanchored on troubled seas. We may never be allowed ashore. Our sorrows will never be sad enough. Our joys never happy enough. Our dreams never big enough. Our lives never important enough. To matter." (Uncle talking to niece and nephew about being 'prisoners' of war)
"She wore flowers in her hair and carried magic secrets in her eyes."
[my favorite]
"Perhaps it's true that things can change in a day. That a few dozen hours can affect the outcome of whole lifetimes. And that when they do, those few dozen hours, like the salvaged remains of burned house -- the charred clock, the singed photograph, the scorched furniture -- must be resurrected from the ruins and examined. Preserved. Accounted for."
Ideas: A viable dying age. A Design for Life. Love Laws.
It's a really good book so far and I suggest it to anyone who is looking for a book (all six of you who read this). I guess it is hard to represent her skill with excerpts taken out of context, but really, trust me. It'll make you smile at memories you had forgotten about.
"And the things you can't remember tells the things you can't forget that history puts a saint in every dream." -Tom Waits
I want to share some of her words because they make sense and have an innocence about them; an innocence that carries wisdom on it's shoulders. William Blake would probably disagree.
"Smells, like music, hold memory. She breathed deep and bottled it up for posterity."
"Memory was that woman on the train. Insane in the way she sifted through dark things in a closet and emerged with the most unlikely ones -- a fleeting look, a feeling. The smell of smoke. A mother's marble eyes. Quite sane in the way she left huge tracts of darkness veiled. Unremembered."
"She hadn't learned to control her Hopes yet."
"Our dreams have been doctored. We belong nowhere. We sail unanchored on troubled seas. We may never be allowed ashore. Our sorrows will never be sad enough. Our joys never happy enough. Our dreams never big enough. Our lives never important enough. To matter." (Uncle talking to niece and nephew about being 'prisoners' of war)
"She wore flowers in her hair and carried magic secrets in her eyes."
[my favorite]
"Perhaps it's true that things can change in a day. That a few dozen hours can affect the outcome of whole lifetimes. And that when they do, those few dozen hours, like the salvaged remains of burned house -- the charred clock, the singed photograph, the scorched furniture -- must be resurrected from the ruins and examined. Preserved. Accounted for."
Ideas: A viable dying age. A Design for Life. Love Laws.
It's a really good book so far and I suggest it to anyone who is looking for a book (all six of you who read this). I guess it is hard to represent her skill with excerpts taken out of context, but really, trust me. It'll make you smile at memories you had forgotten about.
"And the things you can't remember tells the things you can't forget that history puts a saint in every dream." -Tom Waits
Wednesday, November 14, 2007
Final Assignment
This is my last week of teaching.
My final assignment for the kids is one that is completely for my personal gain. I am asking them to write a letter to me. Before writing I want them to reflect on the time that we have spent together and think of things (whatever it may be) that they have learned from me. I hoping to get big picture lessons, not the steps of a heroes journey or how to write a character analysis. I am (secretly) hoping for them to have learned to ask questions, to think before they speak, to not be rude, to be respectful of all things and people, to live deliberately. I want to know if they have grown with me or if I have ignited any interests in their lives. I hope so. It's what I want to do. If not, I will take that too.
I am asking for their advice because they are the ones who matter. Not the supervisor who is watching me, not the teachers who compliment my growth, not even my extremely critical views of myself. Alright, I guess those opinions do matter, but I am still most interested in hearing what those kids have to say.
I will enjoy reading 130 letters while I am on the road over the holidays.
Yes! I have a plan, I am going to see things I have never seen, going to smell new smells, and touch new buildings! I am going to unscrew my head and let all the moths fly out of it with my best girl at my side. I will not be working on my Impact on Student Learning or my online portfolio (vomit) because my collapsing innards are most important now. I need to breath some fresh breaths and blink twice and pinch myself, so I am gonna do it. It doesn't make sense says my diminishing savings account, but life doesn't make much sense all the time either. Neither do the plans we have created or the goals that we have reached.
I don't wanna graduate college, I want to continue writing papers, and engaging in larger than life discussions with classmates and professors. But really, I gotta go figure out what I need because somehow, on my path to this "ultimate goal" of college graduation, I have forgotten what that is. Oh Lordy, I hope I can wrap my tired little hands around some type of idea - a design for my life.
I sure am gonna miss my mama's collard greens though and her sweet, familiar smell that always reminds me of home. That smell is my only home. She is quite a lady.
My final assignment for the kids is one that is completely for my personal gain. I am asking them to write a letter to me. Before writing I want them to reflect on the time that we have spent together and think of things (whatever it may be) that they have learned from me. I hoping to get big picture lessons, not the steps of a heroes journey or how to write a character analysis. I am (secretly) hoping for them to have learned to ask questions, to think before they speak, to not be rude, to be respectful of all things and people, to live deliberately. I want to know if they have grown with me or if I have ignited any interests in their lives. I hope so. It's what I want to do. If not, I will take that too.
I am asking for their advice because they are the ones who matter. Not the supervisor who is watching me, not the teachers who compliment my growth, not even my extremely critical views of myself. Alright, I guess those opinions do matter, but I am still most interested in hearing what those kids have to say.
I will enjoy reading 130 letters while I am on the road over the holidays.
Yes! I have a plan, I am going to see things I have never seen, going to smell new smells, and touch new buildings! I am going to unscrew my head and let all the moths fly out of it with my best girl at my side. I will not be working on my Impact on Student Learning or my online portfolio (vomit) because my collapsing innards are most important now. I need to breath some fresh breaths and blink twice and pinch myself, so I am gonna do it. It doesn't make sense says my diminishing savings account, but life doesn't make much sense all the time either. Neither do the plans we have created or the goals that we have reached.
I don't wanna graduate college, I want to continue writing papers, and engaging in larger than life discussions with classmates and professors. But really, I gotta go figure out what I need because somehow, on my path to this "ultimate goal" of college graduation, I have forgotten what that is. Oh Lordy, I hope I can wrap my tired little hands around some type of idea - a design for my life.
I sure am gonna miss my mama's collard greens though and her sweet, familiar smell that always reminds me of home. That smell is my only home. She is quite a lady.
Thursday, November 8, 2007
Point Master
Today a student who isn't in any of my classes brought me and CT some candy bars that he bought just for us! Cool! Chocolate. I am not sure of the protocol for accepting candy from kids, but alls I know is I am not saying no to free candy.
Also we were doing this Craniumesque vocabulary review for their quiz tomorrow and my beloved third period (little demons incarnate)decided that one of their team names was gonna be "Mike Hawk." I wasn't actually teaching their class (because they are bad kids so I gave them back) but CT wrote it on the board and the kids sniggered from their Devil thrones. Get it Mike Hawk, my cock. Puerile wordplay.
At the end of class I told that team that I was subtracting one point from their final score for assuming that their teachers are too dumb to understand their baby jokes.
Hahaha!
Also we were doing this Craniumesque vocabulary review for their quiz tomorrow and my beloved third period (little demons incarnate)decided that one of their team names was gonna be "Mike Hawk." I wasn't actually teaching their class (because they are bad kids so I gave them back) but CT wrote it on the board and the kids sniggered from their Devil thrones. Get it Mike Hawk, my cock. Puerile wordplay.
At the end of class I told that team that I was subtracting one point from their final score for assuming that their teachers are too dumb to understand their baby jokes.
Hahaha!
Wednesday, November 7, 2007
True Blue
Try to remember back to that time when your boss told you not to wait too long because the deadline was just around the corner or your professor assigned a paper three weeks in advance to give you ample time to complete the assignment, but in true student form you waited until the week, or in most cases, night before it was due. As I begin working on this final college assignment I am refreshed to know that my undergraduate tendencies are as alive as ever.
I have just started looking at my online portfolio and beginning to put together the materials that are necessary for the completion of my program. I do not think that this online portfolio will benefit me, I do not think that any principal will actually take the time to visit my online portfolio, and I do not think that I will enjoy doing it, but sometimes you just have to bite the bright side of things, or get going when the shit hits the fan, or I don't know, I am just going to do it.
I was supposed to have performed an analysis on my students learning. By studying closely a "pre-test," then teaching a skill, and then assigning some type of assessment I was to determine each students progress. The key tense of this last bit of information is past. Yes, yes! Past tense!
I was supposed to have done this while I was teaching. However, hindsight is 20/40 right? I am going to complete this assignment as a reflection. Of course I will have all of the data I need, but all stuck in my big brain. The University I attend is well-known (at least by students in the English Ed Dept.) for it's fondness for reflection, so this should be fine, right?
I am not too worried because one thing I am sure of is that college students have this strange ability to pull things from their unspeakable at the last minute, and college english students have this even weirder ability to make it sound good.
I have just started looking at my online portfolio and beginning to put together the materials that are necessary for the completion of my program. I do not think that this online portfolio will benefit me, I do not think that any principal will actually take the time to visit my online portfolio, and I do not think that I will enjoy doing it, but sometimes you just have to bite the bright side of things, or get going when the shit hits the fan, or I don't know, I am just going to do it.
I was supposed to have performed an analysis on my students learning. By studying closely a "pre-test," then teaching a skill, and then assigning some type of assessment I was to determine each students progress. The key tense of this last bit of information is past. Yes, yes! Past tense!
I was supposed to have done this while I was teaching. However, hindsight is 20/40 right? I am going to complete this assignment as a reflection. Of course I will have all of the data I need, but all stuck in my big brain. The University I attend is well-known (at least by students in the English Ed Dept.) for it's fondness for reflection, so this should be fine, right?
I am not too worried because one thing I am sure of is that college students have this strange ability to pull things from their unspeakable at the last minute, and college english students have this even weirder ability to make it sound good.
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