Trying not to be melodramatic...

Life is an artwork
a tragedy counted against the sky
worrying that it might be falling
or worrying that it won't

each syllable counts for something.
and nothing counts enough
to make me start keeping tally
of might have beens.

You make me happy
to be just one link in the chain
because the link in the chain doesn’t get to see both ends
it just has to hold onto anything within its reach:
just has to hold on and hope
that if he holds on hard enough
the weakest link
expression isn't true.

just has to hold on and hope
that he isn't
the weakest link.

(Hey I just said trying, I didn't say succeeding :) )

Haircuts, Horse Shoes, and Hand Grenades.

One of the ways I feel like my childhood was depraved is that my parents and grandparents didn't use nearly enough colloquialisms. I have to lie and pretend that they did most of the time when I tell people some precious nugget of knowledge they should hear. Example from class: My dad always used to say "Life's not fair, anyone that tells you otherwise is selling something". I think my dad probably has said things like that in the past, but really The Princess Bride said that much more to me. :)

Fortunately, I do not always have to lie; I am being totally honest when I say Mama always said close only counts in Hair Cuts, Horse Shoes, and Hand Grenades.

This is a phrase that I both quote often and don't totally believe in. I think that in some situations that this is very true. However, to truly believe this would make my life much more dismal.

I live in the struggle for reaching beyond my skills and almost succeeding most of the time. And effort must count. I am not a great teacher. But there are days I get close. Those days count. Some of my kids haven't mastered thinking about what the math problem is asking, but they are getting close. As long as they keep working close counts for something. Or it better. And if the road to hell is paved with (actually) good intentions, then I hope they have Poetry, China Buffets and Whisky in hell- because I am gonna be there awhile.

Highlights from the last two weeks:
I had one REALLY good lesson this week. Most of this week was rough in the class.
"John Glenn" still has light years to come, but has made so much progress this year he is one of my best contributors in class.
Friday we had MAN NIGHT. Once again Kenny the Pizza guy was our man. We smoked a cigar with him and made him a Wii character.
Saturday night we played a Newsies Drinking game (pop of course...) On a totally related note, later that night combining a Razor scooter and slaloming the parking garage is fun.
My roommates are amazing people.
I did sign the papers and I will be here 3 years.
I have seen the sunrise over the ocean.
We are trying small groups in class, I love the concept, but if close doesn't count- it seems unlikely that barley managed chaos would count.

Mostly just Grateful... Remember why I need to be in a classroom

It has been a year to the day since Grandma Dolezal died.

Her laughter painted skies over beaches in every room of my childhood. Even now with the colours faded by time lost and regret- hers are still my favorite colours.

So much of who I am is due to the family that she created. I miss her, but today as I was feeling something close to sadness I really couldn't just relax into the meloncholy. All I really could feel at length was proud of her, and a sense of blessedness in being a branch somewhere up on the loudest, roughest, closest tree I could ever wish to be part of. If you haven't been a Dolezal or an associate, I can't explain it... but I truely pray that you have something kin to the Love I grew up around, and that is what I try to create every day in my classroom (while I succesfully make the metric system MUCH more complex than it needs to be).

I miss you grandma and the way you took on life, and your tube tops, and your comfort in your skin, and your coarse loving sense of humour. I miss you.

The Jack Sparrow Question

Tonight I am going to a meeting for new teacher's in HISD. They offered some of us the option to sign on for 3 years (total), and in exchange for working in these schools for 3 years they will give me about $2,000 to pay me back for the certification classes I took, and $500 for my classroom!!

Now all I have to do is decide whether the pirate in me can handle being tied down. It makes sense to stay, because I could use the cash and would love to have the money to spend on my room... but also because that gaurantees I keep becoming a better teacher. Now I just have to decide if I can handle giving up my freedom.

ps- CONGRATULATIONS TO MY LITTLE BRO ON GETTING A LITTLE MORE FREEDOM AND A DRIVER'S LISCENSE!!!!!

Another List:

Here are places in my life that I recommend people watching in my life:

Onion Creek Coffee Shop and Bar
GatorFest
The Pink Floyd Laser Light Show
The Shady Tavern
My School
All Dollar Stores
The few public spaces that still allow smokers
Playgrounds and Dog Parks
The front rows of famous old Broadway plays
Any party with a pinata
Jimmy Buffet Concerts
Dolezal family reunions
Your mirror
Real Record Shops
Renaissance Festivals
Comic Conventions
The mirrors outside Dressing Rooms.
Checkout Lines at Target
Memorial Park
Groups of Camp Counselors

A small victory

We ready "The Monkey's Paw" as a class to work on strategies for reading works that are hard. After a week on the story we watched the Simpson's spoof of the story. I had about 10 kids that still liked the story more Friday Afternoon. Maybe we are making progress even if the test scores don't reflect it as much as I wish they did.

selfnote: I need to figure out how to push their thinking.

I took my heart and placed it into the better things around me.

It is a weird thing to have to sneak around to do work. I feel like a cat burglar except I am wearing a bright pink t-shirt and baby blue blazer. In retrospect, not great sneaking clothes. But TFA says I have to "dress up" for our Professional Development Sessions. So I am dressing up like a college professor who does most of his shopping in the reject bin of Sesame Street. I am at school getting some work done (clearly being productive: note the blogging) before the TFA session. I am not supposed to be here because my tutorials do not start until next week so I am wandering around in the dark cleaning my room, organizing, and turning my head and gut in knots trying to figure out how the hell I am going to become a good teacher and implement centers next week when I also inherit the entire special ed population of the fifth grade 4 days a week and a part time co teacher. Anyone with ideas or resources, please send them. If you don't have those- don't worry, me neither :) You can send prayers. If you are agnostic, atheistic, or just don't think my classroom is worth your daily quota of prayers, well then you can send thoughts. Good ones. If I find out anyone is sending bad thoughts at my overcrowded room I am going to be crabby.

Semester Two, Week One, Day Six:
This week brought exhaustion and change. One of my favorite students withdrew out of the blue Monday after School- the rumour is her dad was deported and so they are moving back to Mexico. I am going to miss her, and since she just found out at the end of the first day back and I already felt like I had been hit by a truck full of adolescents who want to be in middle school- when she came back to get her books I gave them to her and said i would miss her, but I couldn't muster the emotional energy to ask for a hug in front of her mom, since I didn't want to seem creepy or inappropriate. I regret that stalling and insecurity in retrospect. (Afterthought: If you want to send hugs, I think right now I need those more than even good thoughts).
I spoke of this already: I am inheriting the entire special ed population from the other 5th grade classrooms. I am excited for this, while also overwhelmed. I feel like this will force me to differentiate more since my special needs students will no longer be a minority. Maybe life would be easier if God didn't use tough love so often but I have no doubt I will be stronger for this. I just need to keep focusing on the beauty of my rock as I push it towards the mountain peak, because I know that the peak I am striving towards is unreachable.
I am regularly reminded of the wonder that is the people God has put in my life. The people in my life down here are amazing. But it is very like going to a pet store and looking at the puppies. You get to touch and play with them very briefly, but there is not enough time to get to know them, play with them, wrestle, and fall into that blissful place where sorrow melts into laughter and everything outside the moment is gone. Someday I will find that place again, maybe even this summer with these people. I no doubt have so much more to learn from them.
Sidebar: I have the greatest family in the world. If anyone disagrees with this I will take it personally and talk about my family until their head explodes by the amazingness of them. I just wish I had not read so much spider man growing up. I think I read "with great power comes great responsibility" so many times it was tattooed on my brain. I guess that means I have two tats. Jeez I am so freakin' hard core! The way I see it, if it weren't for Spider man, the Round Table, and Robin Hood I would be making 6 or 7 figures and living in a mansion on Lake Harriet in the 612 just spending time with my family. Sorry family, if you weren't so amazing making me feel like i need to pay forward the Love I would have taken care of all of your financial woes.
Sidebar again: I think that last sidebar was too big to be a sidebar. It really is a whole paragraph, but it is too late to do anything about that now.
I have to run to the PDS for TFA ASAP. I will TTYL as long as I don't FUBAR SLAWS on the way to the BSM.