kt234

Sun, 27 Dec 2009 03:49:48 GMT

"So, when are you getting married?" I have a tendency to throw out questions just to see if I can get a response from them.

My cousin who is 34 and has rarely expressed an interested in anything beyond her own world of hiking and "finding herself" had her four month old niece cradled in her arms and she looked up at me and said, "Well, Bryce finishes school in April." I looked down at her had, there was a ring there, not an engagement ring but still a ring. She moved the baby down to her lap and continued to tell her plans about choosing a location for the wedding and moving on to what she referred to as "grown up life". When that conversation ended we moved into the kitchen where the baby's parents were and continued to talk. Standing with my oldest cousins who are now in their 30's and a baby we talked of baby carriers, day care, and jobs. At some point we have all gotten old. But, in getting old we have become much closer. We can sit now and talk without our parents mediating the conversation to make sure someone doesn't end up in tears.

I am the family gossip gatherer. I ask the questions nobody else bothers to ask, so I learn about things like wedding plans. Later in the evening I said, "Hey, Amy tell them about the wedding plans." The room grew quiet, apparently I was the only one clued into the plans. Her mother didn't even know. So, we shared the wedding plans. My cousin who will be 17 in January who I babysat from the time the child came home from the hospital is just about cutest gay boy I have ever seen. He's always had that edge to him but puberty hit in the year since I have seen him and I was like, "Woah" He is out to anyone yet but there is not mistaking that. 12 grandkids on one side of the family, 8 on the other. 2 gays. We are doing well fitting the 10% statistic.

Sun, 20 Dec 2009 01:01:57 GMT

Sometimes I wonder how people overcome the things that they do. My students continue to push through things even after they have been failed. Just the idea of failing makes me feel a bit crazy. Ahhh...I think I will be drinking a lot of coffee during this break it helps my brain stay focus on what I have to do.

Couple of Things:

Sat, 19 Dec 2009 13:01:50 GMT

1) Working with crazy, psycho staff members is irritating. I will just get quieter after break and not deal with any of their nonsense, but the kids this year I love. Sometimes I just have to laugh at my own perceptions of a situation. There is a physically impaired child whom I have seemed to have adopted this year. He comes over during advisory (which is like a do nothing class) and I try to work with him as I struggle to organize all of the other things going on in my school world. We have been working on creating and presenting Powerpoint stories. This kid with his slurred speech says, "It's my turn". I hesitated a moment because he only had three slides and few pictures. "Why don't you wait till after break?" I said, figuring we would fine tune it in the week after break. Nope, he wanted to do it then. Alright, so I put it on the big screen, quieted the class down and said, "Go". Somehow it never dawned on me that he couldn't read it. That I had typed what he said, but now I was requiring him to decode it. But, when you expect kids to do them, amazingly they rise to the occasion. He started rattling off things he had remembered saying and I just kept flipping the slides. He was so proud of himself when he was finished. And I just laughed and marveled at how amazing kids can be.

2) It's winter break and I had a date night with Timothy last night. At five he is a bundle of mixed emotions. I can only imagine what he will be like the emotions of puberty kick in. He would flip from pouting about having to go out with me, to chatting excitedly about his video games and telling me we should play together, to drawing silent and shy around my staff and students. He is interested in learning to read right now and so we sat on the floor flipping through the picture books I have in my classroom. I took out, "Sophie makes me Angry, Very, Very, Angry" and told him I bought that book because it reminded me of him. Tim has a temper, a bit like his entire Irish family, and used to scream, "Devin, makes me so angry." There are only a few words on each of the pages so I told him that during break I will teach him how to read it. He smiled, tucked the book under his arm, and off we went to see the Cafagna's (who I see as like a second family because I have tutored their child since he was 4 and he is going to be 14 in March.

3)The Cafagna's buy me a present each year and it's usually a gift card to the bookstore. Maryanne asked me what else I do and I told her my life is school right now and I will figure out what it means to have a life beyond that some time after my dissertation is finished. This is hard to explain to others that your life is in books, reading and sitting by yourself with your own thoughts. It can get lonely.

Perhaps.....

Fri, 18 Dec 2009 08:09:44 GMT

The vision is the possibility that your best days are ahead.

The vision is the possibility that we're more loved than we'll ever know.

The vision is hope, and hope is real.

Thu, 17 Dec 2009 01:14:23 GMT

Oh dear, what has Livejournal done? If the technology is not broken why do they attempt to fix it. What is the new Find choices. Why do I want to search in some's comments? That doesn't even make any sense.

Look Dude....I am reading from your book

Sat, 12 Dec 2009 14:10:39 GMT

www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/12/08/richard-cohen-rachel-maddow_n_385057.html

This is what we call putting voice into our writing

Wed, 09 Dec 2009 02:18:23 GMT

From another entry of what Geri would refer to as Emo girls who blog....

So, this is my third shot at a secret fucking diary. Twice now I've fucked it up for myself by giving people I actually know access to this bitch and since I'm passive-aggressive (and also don't have a Plus account) I don't block people, I just fabricate excuses about why I deleted my diary, delete it, and make a new one.

Anyway, this is my secret diary. This is the place where I spew all my bile, all the filthy negative emotions I have and the hideous things I think and do. My friends and family have proven themselves incapable of handling my honesty about stuff like that. But I feel like I need a public place to rant, rave, and wax macabre. So, welcome to this fucked up vomit-pile of my bitching, whining, selfishness, self-hatred, fat jokes, and so forth. If you don't like it you can suck it/don't fucking read it.

I promise I will post real entries eventually but oh how much fun it is to venture into someone's text-based life.

Wed, 09 Dec 2009 01:39:15 GMT

So, as I am writing about online journaling I decided to venture beyond the boundaries of Livejournal and check out other sites. Woah, some are really clunky to navigate through and 15 year olds like butterflies and things that sparkle on their site. God, I am so glad my life at 15 isn't archived somewhere. Here is what one girl wrote,

"I have this weird feeling that is kinda hard to explain.I'm sad,upset,angry,pms-ing,tired all the time,confused,and just overall extremely emotional." She's 15...can her life be that complex???

Let's read and see what else she has to say. Let's see she is demonstrating some understanding of paragraph structure. In the first paragraph we hear that she is pissy (the main idea) and then she elaborates on why her life is so complex: "My two best friends hate each other." Of course the next logical question would be, why do they hate each other? That is covered i paragraph three: tori has contributed...She's a total player and thats what i hate about her, or is that what i like? Oh, but in the world of teenage drama there has to be more you are thinking. Well, of course: "my aunt donna had a stroke. Strokes can paralyze you or even kill you."

But, we teach girls to be sweet, right. Well, of course she demonstrates that value system as she concludes in a very fairy tale manner, "This day sure was stressfull but it could have been alot worse." And until the next entry she goes on to live happily ever after.

Fri, 04 Dec 2009 00:00:38 GMT

Someone I know wrote.....

I signed on to windows messenger today for the first time in at least a month and only the second time this semester. I used to be signed in constantly. I just plain do not have the time anymore.

I know that feeling all too well. I miss my very social online life, shocking that real life interferes with virtual world. I am doing more work lately than I have ever thought was possible. I am trying to find the strange balance between studying, interacting with family, and still working. For Christmas I will definitely need a timetable. That is the benefit of having friends in England you learn how to prep for exams. Two classes in the winter and exams in February. I don't know how it will all get done. The stress of it leaves me feeling a bit crazy, but as another friend always said, "Such is life." I am at the library now and I am going to find a few books before I head home.

Thu, 03 Dec 2009 02:25:49 GMT

I was at a workshop today, again. I spend about as much time out of my classroom as I spend in my classroom. I am so over workshops and shitty schedules. I am just about over this co-teaching game. It's been nearly 5 years of working with other teachers and I just want my own class all day long again. Today is one of those days when I am annoyed at just about everyone and everything. I have the patience of a four year old and could not for the life of me stay focused on the presenter and I am not sure if it was because I was in a mood or because he kept referring to himself in the third person. The only point when I was attentive during the entire day was when he was rattling off, "There is a method to my madness....Does anyone know who said that?" Without hesitation I looked up from my Facebook entertainment said, "that's from Hamlet" then put my head back down and went back to goofing off. Ahh....

Wed, 25 Nov 2009 11:49:12 GMT

It's 6:40 in the morning. I am packed and ready to go-Indiana, then Kentucky and drive home through Ohio. I so need a break from Michigan life. Candice said, "Are you really the same girl who wouldn't leave her own backyard a few years ago?" In some ways, yes I am that girl. But, in reality, so much has changed. There are just times when I forget how different things are now. Facebook kind of reflects your life. There are people on there from every part of my life and it's creepy. There are also pictures from every part of your life on there. The two most recent pictures people have put up of me are the two extremes of my life. In one, I am a teacher in a black skirt and the other one I am in jeans, tennis shoes looking quite gay. I prefer that one.

Wed, 25 Nov 2009 03:12:12 GMT

I have amazingly brilliant students this year. They are cordial to one another and are willing to face the difficult assignments I have them. So then why does my dislike of evil child make my days seems long and, at times, intolerable. If the kid would stop getting high I am sure we could make some progress, but right now I think we aren't getting anywhere. AHHHH

Sun, 22 Nov 2009 12:57:48 GMT

I am not decorating for Christmas because 1) I am the only one who lives here 2) I will be gone for Thanksgiving weekend and hopefully another trip right after Christmas so it won't be up that long 3) I don't have the time to get it up and down and get the reading, writing, and lesson planning done. However, I did go through my Christmas stuff for the student council Christmas event and in the process realized the same thing I realized at Halloween time. I have a lot of crap in those boxes. There was a point in my life when I didn't have money and still wanted a million decorations so I bought cheap stuff to put up. But, now that I have some money the junk stuff looks like junk stuff. Which makes it more painful to sort through. There are only a few things in my Christmas stuff that I am truly in love with. The rest is just a mess of things. Someday I will get settled and start recreating my collections, but for now they can sit in the garage.

Thu, 19 Nov 2009 02:34:09 GMT

Woah....again more of Candice's books. Here is an excerpt from Girl Walking Backwards.

"I pressed the pin again my skim. Cutting myself would change everything. The skin that held the dreams in would break open. Blood would only come in a trickle but something else would flood the room from wall to wall. Dream sludge. Truth and Lies.....Don't draw on the body, don't make it speak your temporary thoughts" (p. 200).

"Sometimes you can like someone so much that you want to pretend nothing in your life happened before you met them. You say nothing about the past because you want the person to erase you and remake you into something completely new. Jessica was that kind of person for me. Lorri, on the other hand made me want to talk about everything. I wanted to start with Jessica, to conjure up her memory and offer it to her as a way of saying, "This is something I love, see this and you will know a secret place in me that I can't describe in words." (215).

Sun, 15 Nov 2009 08:13:00 GMT

Friday Night=three hours sleep
Saturday night=bed time at 6PM
Sunday morning=Get up at 2 A.M.
Here are my thoughts....

"You'll miss me if I am not around."
"Maybe."
I wonder if that was a maybe yes or maybe no.
It's quieter now, especially in the mornings.
Nobody else is up when it's 3 A.M. here.
This time when I talk are you listening?

Sat, 14 Nov 2009 08:16:25 GMT

Yes, it is three in the morning. Yes, I have to be up in three hours. Yes, I realize that is going to suck. I just finished making an I-Movie for school and apparently Youtube completely sucks now and you can't upload ANYTHING with music on it. I tried posting it, but it ate my sound. I would say my music choices are improving. This one is cool.

Sat, 14 Nov 2009 02:24:50 GMT

How did it get to be 9:30 and why do I have a million more hours worth of work to do????
I am taking Monday off to play catch up with my real life.

Wed, 11 Nov 2009 01:33:32 GMT

The voice I want to hear so badly right now is probably not the one I need to hear from. When my e-mails get cryptic it generally means there is waaaaay too much going on in my world.

Sun, 08 Nov 2009 20:46:30 GMT

Talked to Heidi today. It makes me sad. As Helen would say anything about England right now stirs stuff up in my head. :(

Fri, 30 Oct 2009 16:28:41 GMT

Suffering through a workshop today Someone please tell this woman to put on a bra. She is old and she needs one. She also has a squeaky voice. She is making me crazy.

Halloween Parties

Fri, 30 Oct 2009 10:34:12 GMT

My party is this weekend. I didn't sleep much last night. I woke up about 2 with tears in my eyes. It's a problem when the tears start during a dream then when you wake up you can't pretend they aren't there. I was up for about two hours. I am glad Questers don't sleep. Halloween, as Helen would say, stir stuff up. I go back to being a little kid and thinking, "It's not fair. You should have been here." She got it in a way nobody else did. Every year the it's not fair list has a least one name, but generally there are additional names make guest appearances.

Okay, if my stupid phone alarm rings it's obnoxious sound one more time i am going to throw it against the wall. My patience today well this week rather seem to be most closely matched with Stormy's. Now there is a person who at least gets that much. Three weeks or so till I get a vacation. I need one now and I am not sure if it's a good thing or not that I only teach part time next week. I have to go because that obnoxious sound is screaming at me again.

Do I really have to go to school today???

Thu, 29 Oct 2009 11:11:41 GMT

My thoughts at the moment

"I doubt that you have ever dared to love anyone that much...."

"You're terrified of what you might say."

I wish I could go hiking today. It was amazing weather yesterday. Field trip today. If I don't get moving I will be late.

Trunk or treat with the boys today. My little skeleton and Spiderman.

Party this weekend with all of the kids.

Need to move on to revising chapter 3.

I just want to sleep.

Wed, 21 Oct 2009 21:47:30 GMT

I got my first question for my exams in February. The professor said I have a ton of time to study, but I am not sure she is aware of my schedule. I got my second set of readings from another professor and was thrilled to see that I have read about half of what is on that list. At the moment things are starting to make sense. I hope that it stays that way. It's an amazing fall day. Can we keep it like this? I don't want winter to start.

Sat, 17 Oct 2009 23:56:31 GMT

Whatever attitude my nephew picked up when he turned 5 he needs to give back to someone else because right now I can't stand it. "Kattie, you don't do nothing for me." or "I not going to church." And the tone he has with people is intolerable. I was supposed to take him to two Halloween parties next weekend, but I think I am going to pass on that. I can't deal with pissy attitudes from anyone lately.

Fri, 16 Oct 2009 04:30:35 GMT

Ah...sleep would be nice. Sleep and I don't see eye to eye when there is too much going on in my brain. This weekend is going to be insane and so will the next two. On the 24th I have 4 Halloween parties/activities to go to. The 31st the party is at my house. Three weeks later it's Thanksgiving. December 5th I am trying to do a fundraiser for the school. Where did 2009 go????