Merit Ferrets and Insight Trilobites

My first two years of teaching were characterized by copious amounts of tears.  I cried a lot--often founded, sometimes not.  I was a cry baby.  I've often stated that I think I cried more in my first year of teaching than in all the previous years combined.  This may be hyperbole, but, then again, this blog is non-fiction and thems may just be the facts. Of course, it wasn't only the job that was to blame; it was also a year when I learned more than I ever hoped about the pitfalls of falling in love with the wrong guy. However, falling out of love with a dude opened up some prime heart acreage for my students and being in love with my kids helped me to be in love with my job...but left little room to love anything else.

Last year was not characterized by tears but by a general discontent that is most aptly termed "burn out". I was a horrible and sour version of myself. Blogging, along with calling a psychic and traveling to Europe solo, were all "cheer the fuck up" schemes.  I think the trip to Italy worked, but that might also have been a product of the fact that the school year was actually over.  But while licking on many cones of gelato and sipping on even more classes of wine and running a few laps around the rampart walls of Lucca, I got to figuring.  I didn't necessarily need a new job so much as I needed a new perspective.  Sustaining another year in a misery coma was not possible. I know, this is all very Eat, Pray, Love of me (minus any of the love), but, again, this is a matter-of-fact account of my life, and I must admit (reserve your judgments) that I read that giant of chick lit memoirs whilst on my journey and it may have even made me cry once...or twice. So, my new perspective boiled down to this: start planning ahead while not forgetting to enjoy where you are.

This is short and sweet, but it appears to be working.  The biggest flaw in my philosophy so far has been choosing a future plan, business school, that relies on math heavy entrance exams. Damn that GMAT.  I took it last Saturday and it bent me over. In turn, I maintained my enjoyment of where I was on Saturday night by partying like a frat-house pledge.  At school, I have been appreciating the day-to-day details that I forgot about last year.  Silly drawings on my white board, for example.  First my classroom was overseen by the reading bear.  However, the reading bear lost his life in a tragic white-board white-out, but he is survived by the critical thinking koala, the insight trilobite, the think skink, and the merit ferret. This year is happily characterized by random funny moments.

In other realms appreciating the present, I spent some serious time in my closet tonight.  All this studying forced me to neglect my clothes!  I had nearly forgotten how many, many options I still have with all the things I already own!  Perhaps a creativity ramp up next week.

Monday

 Tuesday

 Wednesday

 Thursday-

I was out sick

Friday 

Blogbomination.

Its true, I'm a sad excuse for a blogger. I hope that my lack of follow through and inability to commit to blogging is not an indication of other areas of my life...let's just let that one lie.

This week was Thanksgiving break and tonight's blog is brought to you by pre-first day back from vacation jitters. Granted I spent most of the week staying up past my bed time and sleeping in too late in the mornings, I prepped for tonight with a long run and yoga class. Even they are not enough to curb the nervous energy. Well, at least I am being productive with my should be sleeping time.  Things to do this week:
1. Figure out what the heck I am teaching this trimester. Due Monday.
2. Write about a million recommendation letters for all the Daniels Fund applicants--due Thursday.
3. Complete CU Boulder application. Due Wednesday.
4. Submit Hut Trip proposal for Board approval. Past due.
5. Write thank you notes for all the wonderful people who hosted my kids during Intensives last week (especially the yoga studio where one of my darlings decided thieving would add a lil' je ne sais quoi to our field trip.)
6. Study for GMAT. Due Saturday. Fuck.
7. Drive to Beaver Creek. Try not to get inappropriately drunk on Saturday night.
8. Ski.

I think I missed two days during Intensives.  They were both days when I wore jeans.  One day I wore blue and red flannel long gray grandpa sweater. I can't remember what I wore the other day... but I promise not to wear it again.  As previously inferred, I'm good at that.

Honk and Wave!

Ok, I'll admit it, I had little to no faith and I was wrong.  The bond finally passed this year!  After all those prior opportunities on the ballot, it finally passes in the worst political climate in years.  Go figure.  In two years my garage and windowless classrooms will be nothing more than a good story that kids will tell to impress their own kids "when I went to that school...I walked both ways uphill in the snow without shoes AND my classroom was a garage".  In its stead, a brand spankin' new facility made for learning!  Its really a shame that this years seniors won't get to enjoy it because many of them were truly inspiring in their efforts to make this happen--giving up Saturdays to walk door to door in the community to inform constituents.

Sadly, I also wonder if I will be there to appreciate an outcome that we've been waiting for since I started in the district.  The prospect of moving on to a new adventure is certainly bitter sweet.  More bitter than sweet right now as I continue to drown in GMAT math and struggle to find the time to write essays and fear that application fees alone will put me in the poor house.  Sigh.  Long to do list means short blogs!

Monday

 Tuesday--this flannel shirt is from the girls section at Target and they rule everything around me. I own 4 of them and its all I want to wear ever again.

 Wednesday--great vintage find in New Orleans.

 Thursday is missing.  Can't remember what it was but I know I wore my teal scarf.  Friday was Halloween.  I was dressed as Mr. Kelly, the math teacher on the 11/12 team.

Monday

 Tuesday

 Wednesday

 Thursday

 Friday

Teacher Prison Blues

October is rough for teachers and their dogs.  Last week was Bessie's first big escape.  She dug under her fence and made a run for it.  I was lucky the first time to find a nice friend who was willing to go pick her up for me before they brought her to the doggy clink, but today I was not so lucky.  I thought I had secured the perimeter, but the little bitch pushed right through the barriers and wandered back to her friends at the office complex on the other side of the bike trail.  I tried parole, but I think she is officially being put in solitary confinement tomorrow now that I am out $60 for a reclaim fee from the pound and another $50 for a dog at large ticket.  She can spend the day thinking about what she's done.  

Meanwhile, I feel pretty close to lockdown lately as well.  Perhaps its partly my own doing taking on so much extra this fall, but I legitimately feel as though I have no time.  I haven't been to yoga in a week.  Brutal.  However, I did find time to travel to New Orleans this weekend with the fam where we visited an actual prison with an actual rodeo where I purchased actual art from a lovely incarcerated gentleman.  So, despite my prison metaphors, I am quite happy that my life is far from the confines of the real deal...and I still get to pick my own outfits.

Monday

 Tuesday

 Wednesday

 Thursday

 Friday

 Monday

 Tuesday

Thursday

This was a conference night.  I looked like shit.  Whoops.  I wore my orange flat-front corduroy trousers and a navy and white striped t-shirt.

Friday

Teacher trade day.  I was in New Orleans.  

Smell Like A Monster

I think I have spent the better part of this school year smelling like a monster.  Grover would be proud.  My classroom is a sauna (that is a metaphor NOT a simile--there is no like or as about my sweaty pits around 1:30 in the afternoon).  Some days I make my kids do Yoga just because it seems a shame not to put that perfectly heated and humid climate to good use--yoga studios pay big money to establish those tropic conditions!  In any case, I played this video at least 4 times for my last class today.  I don't know if my students were laughing at the video or laughing at how hard I was laughing each time I replayed it.
Smell Like A Monster
This, clearly, is the reason teachers have technology in classrooms.  I plan to write an entire technology grant based on the argument that regular viewing of YouTube hits will improve student learning therefore necessitating a SmartBoard and brand spanking new sound system in my terrarium...I mean classroom.  However, I learned today that I can't just go ahead and apply for grants any longer.  If I want to put in the extra time and effort to acquire resources for my classroom, I first must jump through all sorts of district hoops and get approval from the boss lady over there in the administrative offices who has no idea who I am.  Fuck that.  I'll stick to beer drinking fundraisers to earn my dollar dollar bills.  Who's coming to Upslope on Oct. 29th for pints with a purpose (take 2) to raise some funds for the second annual Girls Outside Hut Trip???

Monday

Tuesday

Wednesday

Thursday--Sick Day!

Friday

Caxy Posse

Back to back travel weekends really takes it out of me.   Family picture weekend in Park City was a perfect fall getaway in the mountains: running with my brother at the Round Valley Trails, dining at Stein's with my family including cousins and aunties, and drinking chai up and down Main Street for Sunday Silly Market.  All of this mellowness amongst the changing birches was perfect prep for my 10 year high school reunion weekend which could not have been more opposite.  I can't remember the last time I saw 1a.m., but somehow being back at the old stomping grounds with old friends (and maybe a few new) tricks one into thinking you can hang in your old ways--drinking and playing til the wee hours.  The LFA Caxy Posse was in full swing!

Monday

Tuesday

 Wednesday

 Thursday

 Friday

In staying true to the theme of the weekend--sloppy drunk like a high school kid--there was a red wine incident on Friday's outfit.  I was wearing red and white striped tee with gray jeggings, black Frye boots, and light brownish/grey grandpa sweater.

Saturday

Alexander Wang doesn't give a shit about dress code.  Best LBD ever.  

Lake Forest Academy--Class of 2000 (well, at least some of us)

Spirit Week!

Monday:

I never know what the hell dress day it is on Monday.  Apparently it was "Celebrity Day".  I think that's lame and I'm glad I didn't know well enough to dress for it.  The only celebrities worth dressing up as you can't pull of in dress code....Snookie for example. 

Tuesday:

What Retro time period can I pull off with 5 minutes until I walk out the door to meet carpool??  60's obviously.  I'm from Boulder.  We like flowy tops and ethnic-y jewelry from all the many places we've traveled to feel as though we are not just a bunch of white yuppies.  It makes us feel cultured.  Besides, every hippie I've ever seen DEFINITELY wore Pucci.  

Wednesday:

Jersey day.  I don't wear jerseys...not even to football games.  I haven't donned a jersey since I played high-school sports.  Eww.  No one looks cute in a jersey and all those girls who wear the pink versions of their boyfriends' favorite team and think it looks so super adorable are so super wrong.  Jerseys are heinous--even when pink. 

Thursday:

 Ranchero day=jeans.  That is all.

Friday:

Black and silver day.  I will credit our district with choosing a super chic color combo.  Metallics are so hot right now.  Next weekend I will be sporting the old orange and black in Caxy pride at my 10 year high school reunion.  Holy fuck, its been ten years and I'm still getting dressed up for spirit week. At least  I can get drunk at next weekend's homecoming.

Talking the Talk

Monday

Tuesday

Wednesday

Thursday

Friday

Learning shit is hard.  I have been taking a GMAT prep course every monday night since school started and it has humbled me.  I don't remember the basic equations of geometry, I can't multiply any times tables past 5, and, sadly (I am an English teacher after all), I can barely recognize the appropriate use of the simple past versus the past perfect when put on the spot.  While its doing an awful number on my self-esteem, feeling stupid for 3 hours a week is likely the best professional development I have ever received. 

If I don't end up with a respectable score on the GMAT, I will at least walk away from my study program feeling that I did not waste a grand so much as gained a thousand dollars worth of empathy.  One might argue that this is actually a priceless acquisition.  That is a nice sentiment, however, boundless empathy coupled with my already limitless patience will not a premiere MBA acceptance make.  These characteristics may make me a nice person and an above average teacher, but I think they also make me a chump.  I have been on a mission this year to de-chumpify my professional life.  Somehow my educational background (a BA from U of M Ann Arbor and an MA from CU Boulder) and my background in education (4 years in a Colorado public school), don't seem education-y enough, so I figured it was time to go back for another round--see if a few more letters behind my name won't finally erase those pesky insecurities always buzzing up in my head.  I'm still trying to piece together what exactly I feel is my future in business, but I can tell you that it has something to do with "sustainability"...yeah, how do you like that hot lingo?  With a vocabulary like that, I am definitely ready for business school.

Who would win in a fight between an elephant and a grizzly bear?

Its mid-term election season once again.  Yet another year of cold-calling and door-knocking to convince our lackluster constituents to give a shit about the kids in our district.  Its a phenomenal experience to watch an entire community fail again and again to pass a bond that would increase taxes by less than two bucks a month with the money going directly into their schools.  In a neighborhood on a downward housing trend, one would think that homeowners would grasp at anything to improve their property values--like brand new schools throughout the district--but after 3 years of watching ballot measures flat line, I am reluctant with my optimism that during my tenure we will resuscitate the lives of our ramshackle school buildings.  Last year, the bond didn't pass even with the added incentive of a 30 million dollar matching grant from the state that would've funded the building overhauls.  30 million dollars of free money!!!!!!!

"Hey, I'll trade you thirty million dollars for two dollars each month."

"Nah, its cool, I'll just keep my two dollars..."

WHAT?!?!?!  Its like turning down a Capri Sun or homemade chocolate chip cookies to keep your baby carrots!  Who would do that?  Nobody that I call friend.

Tuesday...backlighting is a bitch. Lesson learned.

Wednesday

Thursday.  Leggings are not jeans, woot woot!

Friday. Two inches? Uhhhhh-huh....

On friday I was most likely out of dress code and may have threatened to shank a couple of seniors.  I think these facts are irr-elephant to this week's theme: grizzly bears.