The problem with packages

Almost a month ago I was asked to see if I could get a hold of a copy of The Fourth Wiseman a comic rendering of the wise man who missed the birth of Jesus because he was busy helping a man who had been robbed on the side of the road. He spends the next thirty some odd years looking for the child king become a man, hanging out with lepers all while his slave begs that they just go home and give up their quest... even more annoyed when the quest is paused to help the helpless. It all stars Martin Sheen, which in light of Two and a Half Men seems a bit strange. Isn't the Sheen supposed to be chasing after a blond or something?

But that isn't my story.

My story is of my own quest. I was asked to get a hold of this movie for Sunday school on this New Year's Eve. Other classes were canceled, anticipating that this indeed would be "low Sunday" and not many would be around. We'd combine classes so that we wouldn't just be scattered to the four winds lamenting our brothers and sisters who were so wise as to roll over in bed or settle in with the newspaper this morning.

I began my quest by confirming that NetFlix did have the movie. I put it in my queue to be requested at the top of my list the day after Christmas, in good time to have the movie without much stress. I'd continue my movie marathon and all would be well. It was well. Classes were canceled, the event was published. We even figured out how to use a popcorn machine. But all was not well.

Some days before Christmas I looked at my queue. Something had changed. Now instead of all the movies being available now (save for Its A Wonderful Life and Miracle on 34th Street, predictably enough had a "short wait) now one movie had "a very long wait." You guessed it that one movie was The Fourth Wiseman, a movie unknown to myself two weeks ago but apparently known by every other pastor who was interested in showing films. Alas, I could not depend on the oh so dependable NetFlix.

I've done the thing before, where I ran around the city and made phone calls looking for a movie. That was all well and good once, but it wouldn't serve us well in the end... or be likely to yield fruit. Have you seen it at Blockbuster? Besides, aren't all the Blockbusters slowly closing?

So I turned to the purchasing option, and decided to have the CE committee (me) bless the purchase. I looked on Amazon. Out of stock. Available in 2-3 weeks. Ok, lets look at Barnes and Noble. My luck they had it, and it could easily be delivered just after Christmas. I ordered enough other books to make the shipping free... and it was set no worries.

Christmas came, and Christmas went. I got an e-mail saying that the package indeed was shipped, I could expect it on Friday (or Saturday at the latest) via USPS. I could pick it up at the apartment office by 5PM, and while I wasn't thrilled with the prospect of cutting it that close it could have been closer. And it was.

December 27th rolled around and I got an e-mail from Barnes and Noble. "Due to an unexpected delay, we are unable to ship the merchandise listed below in the time frame indicated in our previous email. We anticipate that your merchandise will be shipped within the next 1-5 business days. (Please note: business days are Monday through Friday, excluding holidays observed by the Post Office.) As always, you will not be charged until this merchandise ships from our warehouse."

How nice of them not to charge me. Ha! That merchandise was not the other books that I ordered, they indeed would be here right on time. It was indeed none other than the holy grail of church Christmas movies. The Fourth Wiseman. Apparently BN.com didn't anticipate the film's popularity either. So I canceled my order and began to think of alternatives.

A Christmas Story? I had that one, somehow it wasn't quite Sunday School material.

Miracle on 34th Street? Its a Wonderful Life? All cliche and secular.

The Nativity Story, wait that isn't out on DVD yet and I didn't want to see it anyway.

Brother Sun, Sister Moon? No... that wouldn't do. There's nudity in that... I'm not uncomfortable with nudity, are you?!?!?!?!?!?!

The most likely substitute seemed to be Monty Python's Life of Brian. It is the story of someone who keeps missing Jesus after all. What would be the difference between a wiseman who missed Jesus and the boy born in the stable next to him. So what if the Catholic Church banned it? We didn't nail the 95 theses up at Wittenberg to be tied to the pope's dogma. We're Protestants after all. My gut though said we shouldn't go with it.

Now I've had a few long dark nights of the soul recently. Stewing over things that will not be published for posterity's sake... and in the midst of one of these long dark nights I came up with the solution. One day shipping. It was it was prodigal and indulgent; a sin my thrifty upbringing had not allowed to even cross my mind... you mean you don't have to get Super Saver shipping? And so late that night I did it. I ordered a single movie with one day shipping from Amazon (which incidentally now had my movie in stock). I did this after I signed up for a free trial of Amazon Prime (so my one day shipping would set me back $1.99). Hah, I'll be canceling that one soon.

Anywho all is right in the world. UPS would deliver my package on Friday. I tracked it online. It shipped out late Thursday night, arrived in Houston and was out for delivery Friday morning. I put a sign out so that the package would be safe in my hands. I would not trust Alan the apartment manager (who swears I do not have a package while my hand holds the little slip) to handle my cargo.

And 5PM came and 5PM went, strange... there was no package in my hands. No package on the doorstep. I tracked it again. It had been delivered. It had been delivered but not to me. I looked in Sam's room. Not there. My package was here, I didn't know where. I looked again. It had been signed for by "Perry" who the hell is Perry???? And so I began to think again... Maybe Life of Brian wouldn't be so bad. Maybe we could all just make paper airplanes. I couldn't very well just fake laryngitis and write on the board "read your textbook, take notes - there will be a quiz" when something has gone terribly wrong at work and I can't teach. I've never done that... but it is up my sleeve.

At 10AM the apartment office opened. They did indeed have my package (and a few others they've been swearing they didn't have). My DVD was indeed in the package and it did indeed work.

And so the film rolled at 9:30 this morning and I went to find extra chairs.

Ye of little faith.

Christmas from the Far Side

If God doesn’t change, why is the Old Testament God of vengeance, wrath, and jealousy so different than the New Testament God of love, mercy, and grace?

I’m not going to pretend to know the answer; the paradox has perplexed the faithful and unfaithful for almost two thousand years. He is my layman’s attempt:

The difference between the Old Testament and the New Testament, at its heart is this character that came down to walk among us clumsy and idiotic humans. You know the story. He was born in a stable to a couple of hick Jews. He was placed in a manger; he grew up to tell confusing stories in metaphors his compatriots didn’t understand. They followed him anyway, healing the sick and passing out fish. Then things got wacky, he claimed he was the Son of God and was crucified for his blasphemy. Not that it was blasphemy.

In the Old Testament to talk to God a high priest had to cut up a couple of lambs, offer gifts for his own sins and then offer more sacrifices for the people. Whoever the lucky soul was entered once a year with bells tied to his cloak and a rope around his waist just in case he wasn’t as sinless as they had thought… how else would you retrieve a dead priest from the Holy of Holies? He washed, he fasted, he passed through the curtains so that he might even have a moment to talk to God. We were indeed sinners in the hands of an angry God.

When we were children, hopefully we had someone that loved us to look after us. There were rules. Lots of rules. Some were dos, some were don’ts but there were lots of them. No more than one coke per day, no more than two hours of television a day, you will drink your milk, you will not stand on your brother’s back, you will not order pizza when you are home alone, you will not hit your sister, and you will eat the crust of your bread. For most of us (I hope) the rules have changed a little. You still probably shouldn’t hit your sister, but you can order pizza whenever you feel like it. You don’t have to eat the crust of your bread and you certainly don’t have to buy wheat bread; you don’t have any curfew anymore. You break the rules; most of them, if not all of them… but your parents love you anyway, and perhaps… you know this better than you did before.

Something changed.

That baby that we sang about yesterday, he grew up to do some pretty weird stuff and said some weirder stuff, but as they were hanging him on the tree he entered that holy place by his own blood. He was perfect, unblemished, sane and sinless… and as he was executed for a crime he never committed he became the ransom for our kidnapped souls (Hebrews 4:14-10:39). The curtain was ripped in two from top to bottom and the mount was thrown into the sea. The temple was destroyed and raised again in three days and now we are allowed to talk to God without the mediation of a high priest because the sins that kept us from God have been forgiven.

We can talk to our parents, some better than others mind you… and the relationship is forever changed. Just as our parents didn’t really change we just see them in a different light (and they us), God didn’t change either. He sees us through the lens of Christ and that is at the heart of it all, and in the morning he will sit by our side and make us a breakfast of fish sticks, toast, and tartar sauce.

Mari Crissmas

News source...

Those of you who know me might know that I listen to quite a lot of National Public Radio. I listen on my way to work, on my way home from work, and before the electricity went off and my clock at work was reset I listened at work too. When they are playing classical music I listen to CDs, which isn't really when I'm in the car so well...

I've defended it before Mark Robinson and the Sauer parental units who seem to think it is the product of the communist party. I'm a socialist guys... do you know of any socialist radio stations? This is my primary news source. I'll read other stuff, watch the occasional world news and sometimes something will entice me to watch local news. I don't have cable.

Here is my problem. NPR is real news peppered with special interest stories. The real news for a year focused on New Orleans and Katrina evacuees. While the rest of the world moved onto the news story of the day, NPR focused on their plight. I did too, after all they were in my classes... or rather they were on my roll. Since the election season NPR has made a transition to discussing the quagmire that is Iraq and had a tremendous focus on the ISG. Every morning I wake up to hear that indeed we aren't winning the war, that we might indeed be losing it even after our key objectives have been accomplished and we have declared victory. "We aren't winnin'; we aren't losin'."

My complaint is not that it is biased, everything is biased. If you know the bias you use your brain to figure it out... my complaint is that there are many many other things going on in the world, in the nation, in my state, and in my city that I don't hear about... and as a result I'm not doing well on the NPR news quiz. I do ok, but only because I'm really good at making educated guesses. This seems a shame, since I'm not doing well on the news quiz that THEY put out.

I've also been caught off guard when the following have been referenced by my friends/coworkers: Taco Bell and e-coli, Pam Anderson & Kid Rock's split, the death of Steve Irwin, Andy Pettite going back to the Yankees... there is a hole in my life. I'll admit I wasn't more than twelve hours behind... and friends can count as news sources.

Still I aspire to be a news junkie... and I need help.
Ideas?

But it's tradition...

I'll write this on the off chance that someone that cares will read it... (hi Sam, Greg, and maybe Neal)...

For over twenty years we've had a tradition of going downtown and listening to the carolers at the bank. Every year without fail. This is how the event would typically go.

The Wrights would pick up the Dikemans in plenty of time to find parking and get to the bottom of the escalators at the Park Shops. There we would wait for the Sauers, Boisaubins and whoever else might be coming. Either the Sauers or the Boisaubins (both Thorpes) would get lost or have to turn back for something they forgot. When all were gathered we would take a picture... and then attempt to get on the right trolly. We would then proceed to Foley's for some last minute shopping while the kids sat on a bench. We'd walk to the Texas Commerce bank. Neal, Becca, Greg, Sam and I would find a balcony from which to wait for the mothers and Marcus to listen to the carolers. Our seats were reserved by a bank employee acquaintance I never met. We would proceed to the tunnels, to race back (and get lost a few times) to the Park Shops where there was a food court and a Sharper Image. When Neal turned sixteen and was permitted into the Sharper Image unescorted the rest of us were left jealous... McDonald's was of course the restaurant of choice. In the end the mother's exchanged gifts. Mom gave caramels, Cindy gave zucchini bread... Sarah gave an ornament, and Jean gave orange rolls.

Over twenty years have passed...
The parking garage is now too expensive, so we park across the street. The Park Shops are now Houston Center. The escalator no longer leaves us with a place to sit. The trolley stopped running. Foley's is now Macy's. The bank The tunnels have flooded and been totally remodeled, changing our course. We still need a map. Texas Commerce turned into Chase Bank which turned into JP Morgan Chase. The carols haven't changed. They are the same ones. There is one Christmas tree instead of two. They still seem the Hallelujah Chorus (and I still hear in my head "hallelujah its over" even though I stopped begrudging it years ago). We know our way back through the tunnels, but we still second guess each other. The McDonald's and the Sharper Image are gone and we are left with the Bargain Books and an odd little store called the Sterling Armadillo. Mom stopped making caramel and moved to healthier alternatives that require less labor... but the orange rolls still appear each Christmas morning for breakfast.

We've changed too. Andrew was born (he's now 18). Vincent was born (he's now 17). The Lavertys started coming and then the Fitts. Neal and Greg went off to college. Bec and Marcus went off to college. Marcus married Meghan. Bec married Mark. They stopped coming home early for Christmas. Neal moved to California. Bec moved to Tennessee. Greg moved to Tunis, Marcus moved to San Marcus. Now they've stopped coming home for Christmas at all.

And so there we are... I've missed it once in however many years... when I was stranded in Boston after the dorms were closed. That year I picked out Christmas Trees with the McFarland brothers and learned you really shouldn't make brownies with olive oil.

Oh... and Sam and I are still gonna watch movies on Christmas Day... though this time we won't have to settle because of democracy.

Advent 1955

Garrison Keillor reading...

The Advent wind begins to stir
With sea-like sounds in our Scotch fir,
It's dark at breakfast, dark at tea,
And in between we only see
Clouds hurrying across the sky
And rain-wet roads the wind blows dry
And branches bending to the gale
Against great skies all silver-pale.
The world seems traveling into space,
And traveling at a faster pace
Than in the leisured summer weather
When we and it sit out together,
For now we feel the world spin round
On some momentous journey bound —
Journey to what? to whom? to where?
The Advent bells call out 'Prepare,
Your world is journeying to the birth
Of God made Man for us on earth.'
And how, in fact, do we prepare
For the great day that waits us there —
The twenty-fifth day of December,
The birth of Christ? For some it means
An interchange of hunting scenes
On coloured cards. And I remember
Last year I sent out twenty yards,
Laid end to end, of Christmas cards
To people that I scarcely know —
They'd sent a card to me, and so
I had to send one back. Oh dear!
Is this a form of Christmas cheer?
Or is it, which is less surprising,
My pride gone in for advertising?
The only cards that really count
Are that extremely small amount
From real friends who keep in touch
And are not rich but love us much.
Some ways indeed are very odd
By which we hail the birth of God.
We raise the price of things in shops,
We give plain boxes fancy tops
And lines which traders cannot sell
Thus parcell'd go extremely well.
We dole out bribes we call a present
To those to whom we must be pleasant
For business reasons. Our defense is
These bribes are charged against expenses
And bring relief in Income Tax.
Enough of these unworthy cracks!
"The time draws near the birth of Christ',
A present that cannot be priced
Given two thousand years ago.
Yet if God had not given so
He still would be a distant stranger
And not the Baby in the manger.

-John Betjeman

From the boss...

I got a beer stein for Christmas, much better than the "Teachers are #1" pin I got last year.

Bumper Stickers

Maria! I just met a girl named Maria!

I have a new crush, a new crush in the pure sense of "what can they do for me?" I can assure you it isn't physical. It isn't mental. It is positively parasitic.

Background: Long story short they don't really trust teachers at school. Particularly with things like school supplies. I think they think we must be selling the pencils on the black market. Don't ask for letterhead and DON'T ask for a stapler. You are allowed one for your entire tenure no matter what child took out all the springs and joints. To attain other supplies you must ask (someone who is irritated) for access to the closet (or sneak in when it has accidentally been left open). It has become a game. I've made off with dry erase markers and 1000s of post-its (TM), I've horded colored pencils and markers. I've contemplated getting cases of white out and selling it to the prostitutes across the street.

My crush: Her name is Maria. Her primary assets include having the key to the supply closet at work. I can ask her for pencils and she gives me pencils. We got along splendidly, I liked her. She liked me... but I think there is more. Yesterday my printer ran out of ink. In the midst of grades (where I print spreadsheet after spreadsheet giving the kids "updates" of their grades I ran out of ink. I went to my new friend. I asked her for ink. "#56 please." She LET ME INTO THE CLOSET WITH her. There were more... I dared... could I have two (it is kinda like buying insurance)????? Now in the past I've either a) resorted to coming back two hours later and asking another girl for a second cartridge, but Maria was kind. She wasn't going to make me do that. I took it. It pushed her farther, for in the back of the cabinet I saw it. I saw it #57 tri color ink cartridge. I had heard rumors of such things, but had been unable to confirm its presence. There it was, ans she let me have it. I stuffed them into my coat pockets and left the office undetected, wishing not to draw attention to my new found treasures. I don't want my room broken into.... I had been colorless for 2 years; two years of living in shades of gray. But Maria, Maria... she is an angel... and now my world is brilliant Kodak color.

Calvin and His Snowmen

Teaching in a broken world

In light of the most recent post I'm aware that some of my faithful readers might think I need to find a new profession. To that I have several replies:

1) How many teachers do you have in HIGH school that were all sugar plums and moxie? I can't remember any that didn't get walked over all the time. Do you really think that that works? My kindergarten teacher friends are a different lot than I. They deal with snot, I don't. Besides it gives me an excuse to do things that are irrational "because I'm mean" can be an explanation for all my sadistic tendencies. You'd rather me take them out on them than you, right?

2) I have a small cult following of fragile young women who aren't aware of how mean I am to others. By fragile I mean some of the strongest girls I've ever met. I don't know if I could raise two kids in high school, if I could have lived as an orphan in Liberia, if I could face the world after witnessing massacres in Bosnia, and I don't know if I could get along taking care of my little brothers and sister while my parents worked three jobs. They seem to be attached to me somehow and it wouldn't be easy to walk away from them to some kind of desk job.

3) I'm in grad school for library science because I felt called to do it. Yeah that was past tense. Don't get me wrong I like it... and I don't want to just drop it because I feel kinda distant from it right now, I had a light load last semester and it didn't take much out of me. Didn't have to think much either.

4) Option #3 of many more, go to seminary. I don't want to say I feel like I'm being called into ministry because I think all of us are. Nor am I saying I want to go or what I'd do with it, but I promised I'd pray about it. Since I can't exactly come at the whole thing unbiased I'd like you all to pray too.

Welcome to the 21st Century, Kate

In the last few weeks I've joined the 21st Century - or rather I've caught up with the rest of my generation. There are some ways I'm sure I won't be joining it... I don't need OnStar as much as a key map for instance, I'm not going to swap technology for common sense.

See this story:

NPR - October 24, 2006 · Just because your automatic navigation system tells you to crash the car, you do not have to do it! A German man's navigation system told him to "turn right, now," even though he wasn't to the corner yet. He crashed into a toilet stall. Also this month, a driver encountered a "closed for construction" sign. But he chose to believe his navigation system, which showed the road was open. Nobody was injured when he crashed into a pile of sand.

But I'm not Amish either. So the new "technologies" I'm playing with:

1) MySpace - It is kind of like playing six degrees of separation. I've found a really random group of people, "because the whole world is on MySpace" but at the same time not everyone is using an e-mail address or an alias I'd recognize. Plus some of these relationship links are old and my high school and college were really big so "Mike" might be Michael Callaway but it also might be well... Michael Swartz. So you'll have to find me.

2) NETFLIX (pronounced Net Flicks) - This was spurred on by needing to find a copy of The Fourth Wiseman and having the Blockbusters near be not near me, small, and less than helpful. Besides I've got two weeks coming up where I just need to be amused... and it is cheaper than cable.

In other news despair.com has Build Your Own Calendars this year. I found a cheaper one that had already been built... so If I'm your Secret Santa you'll be the envy of everyone in the school. Cause every teacher needs one of those.

That and Dilbert as a desktop:

And don't tell me it is insulting to my students. The students that "get it" know what I'm talking about.

The best part about...

The best part about the end of the semester is the fact that the students who are going to fail have realized it. There is no point in coming to class at this point. They seem to be skipping enmasse, and they seem to think it ok to tell me that they plan to skip several days in advance.

On the other side of the equation my classes are small and hasve that "I give a shit" advantage that the others don't seem to have.

Maybe I'll make buttons.

The most recent development in the skipping saga: I have Erick 2nd period. He was there. I have his test. I also have him 3rd period, he wasn't there. 4th period he came to my class to ask for scissors. Apparently during 3rd period he went to go buy a new memory chip for his cell phone. After looking at his grades and seeing that he has a 32 he's decided to write that up as a Confederate cause... that's right folks, a 32. At least it is better than the kid that comes every day and still has a 12.7.

@ work

St. Arnold's in the news again.

Inclimate weather

The number one problem with going to school online... classes don't get cancelled for weather.

Blind Dates

So my seventeen year old friend Vince decided it would be nice to set me up with his Latin teacher. "Kate Kepler, it just rolls of your tongue." So he arranged it and I got the phone call tonight.

"Hello, Kate."
"Yes."
"My name is JK and I have a student who I think you know, Vincent. He gave me a list of things to ask you..."
Does it sound like a scavenger hunt yet?
"Vincent's clever isn't he."
"Well he's not doing too well in my class right now, I'm not sure if this is an attempt to endear himself to me or not."

That was a real winner of a line... but he can hold a conversation on the phone, which makes him better than the deaf guy someone set me up with. Not that I have anything against the deaf. We just don't have much to talk about.

As for Vince's grade, I think his parents give him money for anything over a C. I think I should get a cut.

The Kickball Team

Mz. Borden

Lizzie Borden took an axe
And gave her mother forty whacks.
When she saw what she had done
She gave her father forty-one.

In other news for the first time in 25 years I've done something that Matt approved of. He didn't turn it around with some dry snide remark. He gave me a hug. It caught me off guard. Go me.

Thanksgiving

Another Thanksgiving has come and gone and once again nine days of not working a) make me think that I need a vocational change and b) make me glad I have nine days of not working.

It was a good break and I'm headed into Monday with a monstrous project draft due, no good lesson plan for government class (I'm feeling so uninspired) this whole week... which is ok because someone seemed to think it was a good idea to take all the seniors out on field trips all week long. I did do a bunch of stuff though - I hung out with the surrogate family and the blood family and didn't go to the Renaissance Festival. I bought toilet paper, made cookie dough, played trivia games for 10 hours, tried to write up Christmas shopping lists, held a game night, and spent a lot of time in prayer.

I need a job that doesn't require me to spend my free time thinking about it, cause I've got other stuff I should be doing too... stuff that shouldn't have to wait until my next long vacation. Which, by the way, is in three weeks.

Trivia Towns

Cities Large and Small Battle It Out to Lay Claim for Having the Smartest People in the Country

NORTH HOLLYWOOD, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--March 7, 2006--Los Angeles, home to starlets, surfers and brainiacs? The team that tabulates the results of the new Trivial Pursuit(R) mobile game today revealed the ten highest scoring area codes in the U.S., with L.A. leading the pack. From Hollywood to the Big Apple, Capitol Hill and the Great Lakes, cities large and small from all over the country battle it out to lay claim for having the smartest people in the country.

Area codes graduating at the top of their Trivial Pursuit mobile game class are(a):

1. 323, Los Angeles, CA

2. 917, New York, NY

3. 703, Washington, DC

4. 281, Houston, TX

5. 617 Boston, MA

6. 510, Oakland, CA

7. 302, Wilmington, DE

8. 414, Milwaukee, WI

9. 949, Irvine, CA

10. 614, Columbus, OH

Waiting on the World to Change

me and all my friends
we're all misunderstood
they say we stand for nothing and
there's no way we ever could
now we see everything that's going wrong
with the world and those who lead it
we just feel like we don't have the means
to rise above and beat it

so we keep waiting
waiting on the world to change
we keep on waiting
waiting on the world to change

it's hard to beat the system
when we're standing at a distance
so we keep waiting
waiting on the world to change
now if we had the power
to bring our neighbors home from war
they would have never missed a Christmas
no more ribbons on their door
and when you trust your television
[ these lyrics found on completealbumlyrics.com ]
what you get is what you got
cause when they own the information, oh
they can bend it all they want

that's why we're waiting
waiting on the world to change
we keep on waiting
waiting on the world to change

it's not that we don't care,
we just know that the fight ain't fair
so we keep on waiting
waiting on the world to change

and we're still waiting
waiting on the world to change
we keep on waiting waiting on the world to change
one day our generation
is gonna rule the population
so we keep on waiting
waiting on the world to change

we keep on waiting
waiting on the world to change

Limited English Proficient

Every now and then one of my bilingual kids says something really funny. Today was perhaps the oddest.

"Miss, last night I dreamt with you."
"Dreamt with me, Angel?"
'Yeah I dreamt with you."
I smiled and nodded. "I don't think so, Angel."
"I did, I dreamt you killed someone."
"You dreamt of me, you didn't dream with me."
"No I... Oh yeah." Blushes.

So I figure I can be the County Clerk or something. Can't be that hard. Even Rhodes said he'd vote if I ran. Or at least say he voted to make me feel better.

I think I'm going to be $20 richer by the end of the night.
:-)

Guy Fawkes

Guy Fawkes Day is a funny celebration.

It is a funny celebration because, in reality, we are celebrating a foiled plot. Guy Fawkes was caught, Parliament wasn't bombed and then he and his co conspirators were executed. Noble cause or not in a day where we live in fear of terrorists overthrowing our government maybe we do need to celebrate the foiled plots.

Still, it seems sometimes Guy is a hero. Sometimes governments need to be challenged, okay maybe not murder the king but you know what I mean.

All this said, Sam's right, there isn't a lot of difference between our candidates. Same shit different pile. Maybe some shit needs to be burned. Maybe I'll run with the socialist party. Anyone want to sign my petition?

Cheeters

To anyone who cheated at trivia bowl (yeah we know you are) last night... you suck. Because that just isn't the point of the game.

To anyone planning to play on election day... yeah... I think the odds are stacked a bit. Cause I know all the elections Eugene V. Debs ran in... and when Alf Landon ran, AND I know who shot Bobby Kennedy and George Wallace.

Kate

P.S. How many movies was Matt Damon in before Good Will Hunting?

I think so, Brain, but where are we going to find rubber pants our size?

One of the more curious things today was finding that someone from THE WORLD BANK looked up my blog. This was curious as I don't have ANY OPINION about THE WORLD BANK. I SWEAR. I don't even vote.

Anyway this was curious until I looked to see why this person was looking at my blog. Apparently if you look up "leather pants" on the Blogger search you get my site.

So... someone from THE WORLD BANK was looking up LEATHER PANTS. And lingered.

A student of mine told me today "Everything is boring, Miss." I suggested he make a hobby of picking his nose or he's going to live a boring life. I hope I don't get sued for his new bloody noses.

I also have two Alis that just joined Model UN. One a freshman that knows too much about NGOs, WHO, WB, and WTO, WWF, and The Who. Good thing he doesn't have veto rights.

And now for trivia night with the boy I'm not allowed to be partners with.

NaNoWriMo II

Today is October 29th. NaNoWriMo starts on Wednesday.
I've decided to change the rules for myself a little, and given it is a self imposed discipline I get to change the rules.

NaNoWriMo will be NaNoWri2Mo. I already know I won't have time in November to write much. There is too much going on. Too much I say.

I've got grad school (Which interestingly enough this project hasn't turned out to be as time consuming as I thought. I wasn't able to start my project that is due Monday until Friday night (my hockey game was cancelled), my friend in the class called me in a panic that she hadbeen working with all her co-workers on it for the last two weeks and it still didn't make sense to her... I had two days and no library friends... but I'm almost done... unless I missed something REALLY big, which is possible considering the notes are all over the place).

I've got classes to teach (and simulations to write) including the famed stock market game which involves WAY too much math for a poor history teacher to do without access to a class set of calculators. "What do you mean times and add, Miss?"

I've got Model UN which is back after a long hiatus (for Ramadan believe it or not) and senior high Sunday School. Thanksgiving when everyone is coming to town (including Granddaddy for a whole week)...

Renaissance Festival, school plays, new ministers (yeah that actually will make me busier for awhile). U.S. History teacher meetings.

So while November isn't as busy as October, don't expect a novel to be written too. I get December too...

Mock Chaos II

Mock Congress has come, and in most classes gone. We came out of our caucuses and our committees to our floor debates. None of the representatives was particularly interested in debating nor were their compatriots interested in what exactly "hunting within city limits" or "more money for poor schools" meant. Or maybe that was all part of the spin.

In the end though, dispite debating skills not really being practiced (if they exist at all) we were sucessful. The majority party won, most of the time... except when Congress was perfectly divided and then they got mad at me for allowing one student to go to the blood drive. The majority leader bossed people around.

Anyway it is over, and it was fun... it took me an hour and a half to write and it took three days in class to finish. Except for the grading I like those payoffs.

Mock Chaos

Those fans that followed me from xanga know that I *try* to run a Model UN program at my school. Running extra curricular programs at my school is a little like well, herding cats. I've herded cats before - and I've been a cat.

We had to go on hiatus because half my club couldn't be there during Ramadan. Half the interested students can't be there because they have to take the bus to get home. Anyway...

So the solution... do it in class. It will fit. Teach parliamentary proceedures in government class and trade-offs and costs in economics. Run a few practices, assign the paper - and voila, Model UN.

So then then I have to teach parliamentary proceedures to high school students who have the attention spans of oh look a birdie. There also was some cool party on Saturday that "you should have been at Miss." It is the quince where the kids were shot I'll say "no thanks" and if it wasn't I'll say "no thanks" and really prefer that they didn't tell me which bars sold to minors and tell me that DJ Screw dying of a codine/alcohol overdose is "ironic." Anyone out there think it is OK to tell a teacher that?

Anyway... I'm running a mock Congress. I wrote it, which means I already want to fix it... but I've cast my representatives with only stereotypical information about their city/state. I told them things like people from Buffalo want money for snow plows and San Francisco would be interested in earthquake prevention (which they seemed to think was possible). I told them ALL the cities in the US will want their own "Big Dig..." it is a great idea. Then they have to get their parties platform to match. Then they have to get money from special interests. The American Dairy Council, the NRA, MADD, ACLU, or the AARP. Then they have to get reelected... you know after they have to raise taxes to pay for all the pork.

I can't tell if they are interested or if the whole thing is simply simply chaos. I mean, it is Congress right - they have to run around and get support and get the class to vote for all their bills and... well... How could I tell? And why can't that kid write legibly?????? Punk.

I need to bring my meat tenderizing gavel.

Is there a lawyer store somewhere or something?

NaNoWriMo

So I'm thinking of writing a novel for National Novel Writing Month. I've got a couple of ideas:

1) Catcher in the T-shacks
2) It Takes a Village of Crackpots
3) How to solve the problems of poverty in 3EZ steps!

They are each variations on the same theme.

See, I just don't have that much to do in November so I figure 50,000 words - what the heck?!!?! EZ!

That was sarcasm. But you knew that.

How to find white trash...

This is a statistic I'd like to know so I won't raise my children in this city:

Eternal Image, maker of customized urns and caskets is entering a new market. You can now be eternally kept in an urn in the colors of your favorite baseball team.

Now which team would sell the greatest number of urns?

Mistakes and blessings...

Things you shouldn't do:
drink a bottle of wine on a school night.

Things you should be happy for:
NO MEETING TOMORROW!@!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

:-)


SWEET.

DO A DRUNKEN DANCE


.l,/l/,/,

Thanx

An exercise in creativity... be a spin doctor

Republican Congressman Mark Foley has resigned amid accusations that he sent inappropriate electronic messages to minors that worked in Congress. House Majority Leader Dennis Hastert has been accused of covering up the Mark Foley scandal. Democrats have demanded that he resign and questioned his morality.
REPUBLICAN SPIN:

There have been more American deaths in the last month than any other month in Iraq.
REPUBLICAN SPIN:

The War in Iraq began in March of 2003 because it was believed that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction. No weapons have been found.
REPUBLICAN SPIN:

Gas prices have fallen in each of the last fifteen weeks.
HOW COULD REPUBLICANS TAKE CREDIT?

Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid has been using campaign donations instead of his personal money to pay Christmas bonuses for the support staff at the Ritz-Carlton where he lives in an upscale condominium. Federal election law bars candidates from converting political donations for personal use.
DEMOCRAT SPIN:

Republican leaders (including Tom Delay of Sugarland) have been accused of taking bribes in exchange for voting for certain bills.
REPUBLICAN SPIN:

Despite five years passing since the September 11^th attacks, Osama bin Laden has not been caught and terrorist plots continue.
REPUBLICAN SPIN:

Database

My life has turned into a database.

#1 Reason to vote for Chris Bell

“‘Poli’ means more than one. ‘Ticks’ are bloodsucking parasites.”
-Kinky Friedman

The Bridge on the River Kwai

I was walking down the hallway today, taking my long trek from the copy room out to my little shack (approx one mile) and I was feeling a little, um... weird.

One of the things I've noticed about teaching is that so much of your work is in isolation. Duh. You are supposed to spend the majority of your working life with teenagers. You are funny. No one really appreciates how funny you are. Sometimes they get it, and then you can be proud (they did get it when I wrote "mental incontinence" on the board as a disqualification for voting). Some handle this by losing their sense of humor, some handle it by bringing their humor down to their level. I am not that low, I think knock knock jokes are lame at any age past six. Puns are the game, but those limited English kids don't really "get" puns all the time.

So if people aren't going to laugh with me... then I'll have to amuse myself.

Disclaimer: I fully recognize that my behavior, when perpetuated for long enough will gain me free admission to a nut house. Wait... hmmm...

I like sound effects. I can draw funny elephants on the board. I've taken to calling everyone that tries to tell me what to do "the man" and for that matter anyone in history that was well... on top. I practice funny walks sometimes when the kids are working quietly on their (gasp) worksheets. I yell at the stapler and the attendance program (which was designed by Satan). All in an attempt to well... cope.

Now some of you know I like to teach in metaphors. Imperialism is like the War in Iraq. Well not like... that would be a simile. Imperialism is the War in Iraq. Or do I have that backwards. Monopolies are like Ticketmaster. Immigration policy now is like it was 100 years ago... The Spanish-American War was a lot like a misunderstood cat-fight over the the attractive on the outside Cuba. The Civil War was a misfired divorce when the bride was forced to go back to her husband and make nice...

And sometimes I have metaphors for my own life. Today I was walking back from the copy room on the way out to my shack. The march is about one mile and there is a reason I've lost weight as I've labored in this jungle.

I started to whistle. I started to whistle the Colonel Bogey March. Din din. Din. Din. Din dindin din. Din din din... and that's when it hit me. I'm building a bridge over the River Kwai. The officers aren't working and the POWs don't care. Actually, they might be out to sabotage the whole thing (go figure). In that respect the plans are well... poorly thought out. I'm building a bridge over the River Kwai. When we realize the first plan is faulty, we scrap it all and build another bridge exactly like it 100 feet away. And when it is built... well... you know what happens. The comander gets in a gunfight, gets shot and accidently hits the plunger wired to the bridge, blows the whole thing up and sends the train into the river. A lesson in futility, "Madness!!! Madness!!!" I say.

The more I think about it, the more the metaphor works. Din din. Din. Din. Din dindin din. Din din din... is it me that's wrong in the head or... something else?

My question to those more well versed in insanity than I... should I see a head doc?

In other news: Magic Shell (R) might possibly be my new favorite substance.

The Crew

Tonight I had the pleasure of hosting a corps of complete strangers. Except for one, but they didn't know how in the world they had secured an invitation to eat scrumptious chili and state-famous Blue Bell ice cream. So the question was, "how did you meet?" My answer, "we met one night on the boardwalk and it was true..." then Dorothy cut me off. We were left with not much than "we were friends of friends who became friends in the midst of well, a year of - for lack of a better word - drama. Then we led a Bible study together. Heh, we led Mark Study together. You know how it is difficult to quantify a friendship?

Six years later (including two year sabbatical when we were going through hellish years in different cities) we can fall back into a friendship, if only for a few hours among complete strangers. I'm holding her books for ransom so she'll have to come visit me in April (after her adventures).

I'm feeling relatively melodramatic these days. There aren't many friendships I've had that have lasted that long (or with the break) - and the half dozen or so that have... well... I love you all.

Peace.

Caught in the stacks

Well I spent much of the last two days working on "IOP Draft Two" also known as the beer database. It was due about sixteen minutes ago. At this point it is eighteen pages long. I fully expect it to be over thirty pages long by the time it is finished. Ah whatever...

My desk is stacked with my books, articles, and intructions not to mention the objects that have been profiled. So on my 2' x 5' desk there are a half a dozen books and a dozen bottles of beer. Yeah, it sure looks like I wrote an eighteen page technical manual today.

On a side note, isn't it the Democrats that should be under such moral scrutiny? Wonder what will happen if the Dems take the house.

Trends

If you've paid attention much in the last ten years you might have noticed there are some reoccuring themes in my life. They tend to come up every six months or so, others only resurface once every two years or so. Still they resurface and resurface and resurface. A lot of the time I just push them back under the rug. You know, a healthy reaction... :-)

One of these reoccuring themes came up again this weekend, the wise B.S. King pointed it out: "It sounds like you aren't really sure where you are going again." Heh, yeah. Ha, every six months or so I rewrite my game plan. Sometimes it is because I hear my call loud and clear (yikes! I think God is talking to me again) and sometimes it is just because I get bored. In this case it might be a little from both columns, but I'm starting to feel things get mixed up again. And stir and stir and stir. Gulp, I was just getting comfortable (and bored).

So if you don't mind prayin' for someone (who you might not even know) I think I'm in for another season of change.

I think I want to throw up.

What happened to...

So what happened to all those feel-good stories I used to hear? You know, the ones about what Princess Di was wearing that day, about the boy mowing all the major league baseball fields? Or hell I'll even take the fluff pieces about how to get out of a locked phone booth full of killer bees.

Why are they reporting on the real news, surely it isn't because Americans are all the sudden interested in the rest of the world.

The 13th Inning

Oy, you really do get your money's worth when you watch the Astros... two games for the price of one.

Ramadan

Somehow, perhaps because Ramadan moves around and I've gotten to be more effiecient at teaching (now I actually get to Watergate instead of just Pearl Harbor... this year I'll get to September 11th if it all works out) I seem to teach The Age of Reform during Ramadan.

This is perhaps one of my favorite things to do because I get to read this:

"All day long the blazing midsummer sun beat down upon that square mile of abominations: upon tens of thousands of cattle crowded into pens whose wooden floors stank and steamed contagion; upon bare, blistering, cinder-strewn railroad tracks and huge blocks of dingy meat factories, whose labyrinthine passages defied a breath of fresh air to penetrate them; and there are not merely rivers of hot blood and carloads of moist flesh, and rendering-vats and soup cauldrons, glue-factories and fertilizer tanks, that smelt like the craters of hell-there are also tons of garbage festering in the sun, and the greasy laundry of the workers hung out to dry and dining rooms littered with food black with flies, and toilet rooms that are open sewers."
-Upton Sinclair, The Jungle

To a room full of Muslim students.
Then I get to inform them that their cereal has x numbers of fly legs (or is likely to), and that their pasta has x grams of feces.

Consider it my act of understanding their faith, and helping this whole fasting thing.

Move-in Hairstylist

Every three months or so I get my haircut. I like Lisa. She has a few legs up over every other person that has ever cut my hair:

1) She speaks fluent English.
2) She listens to talk radio.
3) She reads books (in English).
4) I've known her for, well since 1993.
5) She doesn't ask me if my boyfriend is cute.

Now I like Lisa becuase she knows I don't like big hair. I'm an atypical Texas girl I guess, so she blow dries it and straightens it. Once every twelve weeks. I generally get compliments (though it makes me look less like Mary Louise Parker or Alicia Hammon (whoever that is) so I might keep it.

Problem: I'm not ambidextrious enough to brush my hair, much less blow dry it, and much less straighten it in any uniform way.

Solution: Sam can do it, as repayment for that loan I give him every month.

The Rocket

Tonight I'm going to watch Clemens pitch his last game ever. Or his last home game ever. Or his last regular season home game ever. Or his last home game of the season.

That's the problem with lasts, you never really know when they are happening.

So tonight I'm going to an Astros game. Roger will be pitching...

The Beer Institute

Sam and I went to the SPEC's today to buy beer for my library project. I'm building a beer database :-) As it turns out I spent more money on the beer for the project than on the textbook and all the software. Hmmmm... now that is what you call hidden fees. Do you think I can write that off on my taxes as part of tuition? I claimed happy hour on my taxes last year as an expense for work and they didn't say anything.

The difference between FOX and NPR

FOX: "Find out why UFOs are causing problems for the space shuttle!"

NPR: "Astronauts are invesatgating if a mystery object caused some damage to the heat shield, the first inspections showed no damage, but they will use a second test just to be safe."

September 19

Yar! Today be squalk like a pirate day. 'Tis a good day indeed; spent it with me class of real pirates, me precious felons and wenches. The crew pilfered ye ol' butcher paper to study the lives of 'em land lubbers. 'For this though we squander our hours in the council of the ship blubbering over the problems of the sea. The council then voted to be forcin' the master of the high seas to the plank. Say you shall there be but a score and seven hours in a day? Yar, there be not for this foolishness that be makin' us to the chokey and be askin' us to turn lead into gold? Be ye as crazy as a salted herring and be damned for the contempt. Davey Jones be decidin' your wretched fate. Gar!

Kentucky Fried Chicken v. KFC

Today Sam and I went to KFC after church. I ate a Dreamscicle. It was like my wedding day or something.

On our way home Sam informed me that Kentucky Fried Chicken had changed its name for one of two reasons, one of which was plausable:

1) The "chicken" there could not be called chicken so they changed their name to KFC.

2) One of Sander's credos for his company was that no one could walk into a Kentucky Fried Chicken and be turned away for lack of money. So the company changed its name so no one could ever walk into a Kentuck Fried Chicken again.

In case you were wondering Sanders sold Kentucky Fried Chicken in 1964. He died in 1980.

This launched a search of the Internet and UNT databases (for the true reason for the change, which appears to have occured in 1991) my only reliable source for researching anything about KFC from my couch.

FACT: LexisNexis seems to only go back to 1992 on the subject.

FACT: The Houston Chronicle didn't deem the name change noteworthy.

FACT: PETA (led by Pamela Anderson) began claiming in 2000 that KFC chicken was genetically modified "monster chicken." They asked the Kentucky governor to remove the statue of Colonel Sanders from the capitol building.

FACT: In the early 1990s Americans went on a "health kick" and started avoiding "fried foods."

RUMOR: The Commonwelath of Kentucky trademarked the word "Kentucky" and asked that all companies using the name pay the state fees if the word is used in a song or on a product.

RUMOR: KFC was thinking of expanding its menu outside of fried chicken, so they wanted the flexibility. This never happened.

FACT: In the early 1990s other companies shortened their name: International House of Pancakes became IHOP, Howard Johnson's became HoJos.

FACT: Americans now don't mind fried foods, it is the carbs we are worried about. So KFCs remodeled stores are going back to the old name.

FACT: KFC doesn't give you real honey. They give you honey sauce made with: HFCS, corn syrup, sugar, honey, and carmel color.

FACT: It is still tasty chicken.

The ALF-CIO

In case you were wondering who to vote for the AFL-CIO has mailed me a list. It begins with the following,

Dear Union Member,
This November 7, 2006, Union members and their families will have the opportunity to vote for candidates who are FRIENDS of labor and who support our issues...

Early voting begins October 23rd folks and the AFL is endorsing, DEMOCRATS!
Babs Radnofsky, Chris Bell (not Kinky), Al Green, Sheila, Nick Lampson (not the write in Republicans)... sure there are a few Republicans... wait no there aren't.

One Democrat though is notably left off. U.S. Representative, District 7 candidate - Jim Henley. Now Mr. Jim gets no support from the Democratic party, perhaps because he is running against John Culberson (R) who has been the Congressman from these parts since well... Phil Archer retired. Also a Republican. Lets put it this way, if a Democrat takes District Seven (lifetime educator or not) it is a sure sign that the Republican incumbant probably embezzled $1.3 billion from the protection of baby seals in Alaska. I'm pretty sure a dead Republican would win over a Democrat in these here parts.

That aside, the true mystery is - WHY DID THE UNION BOTHER TO SEND ME TWO ($.88+paper) NOTICES telling me that I should vote Democrat? Do they think I'm a dummy? As though I thought - hmmm... maybe this year the AFL-CIO is backing PERRY? Ha.

Let's just stick with the status quo and save a little in postage how about?

And, Dad, in case you are reading this: I'm not in a union of any sort - they just keep sending me this mail. They must have me confused with someone else...

R.I.P. Ann Richards

In honor of the original "Tough Texas Grandma"

“How to Be a Good Republican: 1. You have to believe that the nation's current 8-year prosperity was due to the work of Ronald Reagan and George Bush, but yesterday's gasoline prices are all Clinton's fault. 2. You have to believe that those privileged from birth achieve success all on their own. 3. You have to be against all government programs, but expect Social Security checks on time.”

“I believe in recovery, and I believe that as a role model I have the responsibility to let young people know that you can make a mistake and come back from it.”

"I am delighted to be here with you this evening because after listening to George Bush all these
years, I figured you needed to know what a real Texas accent sounds like."

“Teaching was the hardest work I had ever done, and it remains the hardest work I have done to date.”

“Poor George [Bush], he can't help it. He was born with a silver foot in his mouth.”

Roomates

Fact: I haven't seen my brother in five days.
Fact: He lives with me.
Fact: I've been working crossword puzzles and making a beer database.
Fact: I need him to help me with crossword puzzles and beer data.
Fact: I miss my him.

Us and Them

On the eve of September 11th I'd like to take a minute to reflect, not on the firemen, the businessmen and those that died, though I'll certainly take a moment to remember them but on the freedoms that may very well be on life support.

I've said this before. I'm sorry for the redundancy. If any of my readers out there are interested in making a film... well we need a remake of 1984. Or something.

Freedoms guarenteed by the Bill of Rights:
Religion
Speech
Press
Assembly
Petition
To bear arms
To not be forced to quarter soldiers
No unreasonable search and seizure
No being held without being accused
No double jeopardy
Cannot be compelled to testify against oneself
No seizure of private property without just compensation
The right to a speedy, public, and fair trial
The right to approach the accuser
The right to an attorney
The right to a trial by jury
No cruel and unusual punishment

Seventeen basic rights, nine of which have in some way been tested as a result of the 9-11 attacks and the "war on terror" that followed. While some are screaming that these freedoms must be protected foremost others are calling for increased security, perfectly willing to surrender basic freedoms in the name of additional safety.

We harken back to the days of the Alien and Sedition Acts; the suspension of habeus corpus during the Civil War; the Espionage and Sedition Acts; the days of Japanese detention centers; the Red Scare; the McCarthy Era. And I am forced to ask, did we ever really have those freedoms - or do we have them when it is convienent.

I for one would prefer history not to repeat itself.

I've also heard a lot about "they" lately. "They" might be anyone really: Arabs, Muslims, Hispanics, Gen Xers, and New Orleans transplants. I've been told Hispanics don't work, Muslims hate us, Arabs want to kill us, Gen Xers can't read, and Katrina kids are all hoodlems. I'm not going to end stereotypes tonight but I'd like to acknowledge that there are many exceptions to the "rules" so many that I can't see that there are rules.

At any rate stop pretending we're perfect.

Purple Hairy Monkey Butt

Remember the game of telephone? We whispered a phrase into our friend's ear but as the message was passed it was increasingly distorted. Well, I think I've found it again in secondary education.

I have this activity that I like to do. Teach the kids sequencing and logic... they start out with a timeline of inventions and then are asked a series of questions, easy questions mind you:

Why are there no photographs of George Washington? (The camera was invented 15 years after Washington died).

Which was invented first the escalator or the elevator? (Otis invented the elevator first).

You learn interesting things, like we had traffic signals before we had light bulbs OR cars and that karl Benz (as in Mercedes-Benz) actually invented the first practical automobile, not the tycoon from Detroit.

But here is the thing, when you cheat the teacher knows it. Some answers were written in the wrong blanks true... so...

Q: What is a telegraph?
A: Alfred Nobel

Q: If you lived in a small town in Colorado in 1880 how would you get a bicycle?
A: The Wright Brothers

Two thirds of the class said people started moving to Houston in 1900 because of the prostitutes and factories.

But they also copied from a kid with bad handwriting so:

Q: How did they open tin cans during the Civil War.
A1: With knifes.
A2: With a knifes or shoot them.
A3: Short them or with knife.
A4: Short them.

Q: If you lived in 1900 what would you do for fun?
A1: baseball
A2: freeze tag
A3: pretzels

and finally:

Q: If you lived in 1850 how would you close your raincoat?
A1: buttons
A2: butter

Oh my gawd Becky...

Because my previous posts have led to e-mails, comments, and even phone calls regarding my grammar and my use of homophones I've not wanted to post recently. Or maybe it is the whole going back to work, getting sick, and then starting grad school simultaneously that has led to my laziness (and lack of real-life incidents to write about).

I do feel compelled to share one particular observation I made this weekend.

This weekend wasn't really a weekend. To observers on the outside (my coworkers) they probably could conclude that I cut class on Friday to enjoy a FOUR day weekend. That would have been nice, and admittedly I've done it before (see trips to San Francisco and New Orleans) but calling for a sub this weekend did not involve peninsular cities. This weekend involved 30 hours of lectures on information organization, or as it has been renamed so my salary can double "metadata." I know, I know you are jealous, you are thinking WOW cataloging and databases how interesting! In truth there is more to it than that (i.e. the problem solving) but that is not what this little blog is about.

This blog is about classmates. Now I've sat through some classes with some interesting classmates. From high school the one that most stands out in my mind was Ben, who slept in the aisle beside me in Calculus class. No harm no foul. There were annoying characters in high school, but it seems I dodged a bullet. In college it was Sharon, who seemed to pick her history classes based on the ones I had registered for. Sharon was a dull girl, she didn't change her homemade clothes often and had the annoying habit of wanting to be smart but also not really listening. Her hair was greasy. Which meant she asked a lot of questions that had already been answered five minutes before. Again, for the most part I dodged the bullet.

Grad school though is a different story. My classes now encompass a much larger demographic, to the degree that the Gen Xers and the Baby Boomers almost got in a fight when a Baby Boomer said "Gen Xers don't read, do we really want to develop all this technology to serve them when the solution should really just be to get them to read; aren't we just feeding their ignorance." There were two older ladies in the class that seemed to have an ~irrelevant~ comment about metadata in the corporate world, and had parallels to everything we were talking about on some database (that this audience of librarians already knows about).

On the back row the bad kids started races to see who would make the most extraneous comments, Jewel won.

Jewel though was not my problem, in fact my problem didn't hit me until Saturday. Becky (we'll use another pseudonym here) was most certainly the star student. Her hair was in a perfect I'm-a-serious-student-so-while-my-hair-is-perfectly-styled-it-looks-like-I-didn't-put-any-effort-into-it ponytail. She carried a 64 ounce bottle of water to class every day. She drank the coffee provided AFTER spending five minutes balancing out the flavor with cream, sugar, and hot water - sampling each sip and adjusting according to her refined palate. By today I realized that she was arriving an hour early for each class to set up the contents of the rollerboard suitcase in and around her desk.

Apparently Friday she was lost, but as time went on she began to catch on to the schemes being presented. As Dr. E carried on his lectures and his explaination of our project there becan to be a soft echo across the room "ohhhhhh..." and "yes, yes, yes..."

While transcribed it sounds like it might have been an orgasm, it wasn't. It was much more akin to her being in church, propped up with four color-coded highlighters for for her notes; two binders (for the lecture notes and the project discriptions). Her "ohhhhhs" and "yes" very well could have graduated into an "Amen, Dr. E., amen!" Keep in mind this is all about classification, cataloging, and information systems...

That would be why I don't work in private schools, I feel like there would be a much higher chance of me being fired for calling some poor girl "an annoying little tart."

As it stands now I'm not sure they would know it was an insult.

In truth there was a lot of cataloging going on in the class. The back row (where I was dutifully sitting) took not only a catalog of her outbursts bust also broke them down into "questions" "fake questions" "ohhhhs" and "yeses" 257 in total over the course of three days. We also worked on crossword puzzles and sudoku.

Now those are my kind of students.

1984 in 2006

Dear Big Brother,

I hear from the news that you are still watching me. I know you SAID that you are only watching those that are connected to Al-Queda. Those who Al-Queda supposively called or who called Al-Queda. Or anyone you thought might have been Al-Queda. I figure if we've got some web of anyone within six degrees of Osama I'm probably in there. I mean, I've played Six degrees of Kevin Bacon, I know the whole world is connected.

So anyway, I know you are watching me so I feel the need to explain one of my most recent purchases. Ok... here we go. I bought The Dukes of Hazard soundtrack. I didn't pay cash, so you'll know it was me. Now first things first I never saw the movie, or rather I haven't seen the movie yet. I bought the CD because I was looking for a "good collection of Southern Rock." I'll admit there were some selections in the 2 CDs for $5.99 aisle but well, I just can't trust a collection that doesn't have Skynard AND the Allman Brothers. It just couldn't be complete. Lest you think I'm going to insite a Second Civil War (I do work for a school named after a Confederate general and I am teaching "states rights" and "individual freedoms" in history class) I'll explain - it is for my Dad's birthday. He doesn't listen to "music" as most of us would, he focuses on a steady rotation of A) Four Tops B) Temptations C) CCR and occasionally the Beach Boys... something is going to have to change.

I can also explain the recent purchase of 20 boxes of Jiffy; my recent trip to Alabama; 3 gallons of hairspray, and the bussle.

The Union forever,
Kate

Just remember when you're talkin' to the man upstairs

Sometimes you have to learn a lesson more than once.

This particular lesson I've "learned" approximately 152 times in the last 25 years of life on this planet, but alas my progress has been incremental at best.

Sometimes I look at life as a choose your own adventure novel. True you start on page one, but by page fourteen you are making choices to slay the dragon, to let it run free, or to keep it as a pet and alas your life is forever changed. Sometimes one choice will lead you back to where you would have been if you'd made a different choice; but sometimes the road taken is not a mere shortcut or protracted path with the same outcomes.

This is all well and good when you are the one making the choices. We are not always the ones making our choices. Sometimes choices are made for us, doors open and doors close. I for one get frustrated by the prospect that I am not in control. I don't get what I want just because I throw a tempertantrum (I've tried) or threatened to walk out. Apparently I'm not the princess of the universe.

So here is what I'm grateful for: all the times that life hasn't worked out the way I would have had it work out. I don't know what my life would look like if every one of my wishes had come true. I like my life pretty well right now, and upon reflecting on those times things didn't quite work out the way I wanted them to, well - I'm glad they didn't.

So keep reminding me of that for the 153, 154, 155, 156th times...

And so... "sometimes I thank God for unanswered prayers... just because he doesn't answer doesn't mean he don't care."

The Bathtub

Dear Sam,
Thanks for cleaning the bathtub - it is emaculate.
Your sis,
Kate

Plan B

Schoolhouse Rock

Having recently realized that my "It's America Charlie Brown!" collection glorifies our history a little bit, oversimplifying and always marking Ben Franklin as "the guy with the kite" I sought out new educational cartoons for my classes this year. The goal: something entertaining, educational, and short. I went to the library with this intent, humming the bars to "I'm Just a Bill" and hoping against all hope that no one else had beat me to the Schoolhouse Rock anthology.

They had.

I was able to sweet talk my way into borrowing it for a day, my own copy should be arriving at the public library tomorrow. And so, after making enchilladas for dinner I sat down for my very own screening of "America Rock."

We started out with "No More Kings," followed by "Fireworks," "Shot Heard 'Round the World," and "Preamble." Hokey, but alas what do you expect from ABC programing from the 70s.

I start to wonder, did kids watch these things (I mean, mine will tomorrow) or were they more like extended commercials for kids to refill their bowls of sugar smacks and Lucky Charms? Ben Stein meets folk music. There is certainly a reason these didn't make it to the cartoons I watched in the eighties. As history progressed it only got worse, from an episode entitled "Elbow Room" about Manifest Destiny (which completely ignores the Mexican War) to "Sufferin' till sufferage" the clips are sick propaganda. I wonder what the Russians were putting out? This was our answer to the space race? How the hell did we win the Cold War?

The throw-up story

It was Tuesday night. I'd completed my second day back at school. I was on the phone. Sam came home at 10:33, after getting off work at 8PM. There is a benefit of working in a brewery, and that is nearly unlimited (as in unlimited until your boss thinks you are too much of a drunk to work with caustic soda) beer.

He was on the phone as he turned the key on the door. I could hear him before the door even cracked. He was loud. He was drunk. He was making plans to go over to see Nick and Anna, recently returned from the left coast and the far east. He'd be over there in forty-five minutes, just after he took a shower. He was covered in sweat.

I got off the phone, I needed to go to bed. I greeted Sam in the hall. He wrapped his arms around me as he continued to tell Anna he'd be there in forty-five minutes; just after his shower. Again. He nearly pushed me over. He hung up, he began to tell me about his day. About how he'd had a couple (duh Sam). I brushed my teeth. He kept talking. I headed toward my bed. He stood in my door. He started to take his sweaty clothes off. First the shoes... he threw them down the hall. Then his socks, those went in the bathroom. Then the shirt. Then the shorts.

"You're going to stop now, right?"

"Yeah." He kept talking. Loud. I wanted to sleep. It was now 11:11. The wishing hour. He should have already left. He was still talking, half naked with out a shower. I reminded him he needed to leave. He kept talking.

"Oh, you want to go to bed?" I was under the covers, curled up in a ball staring at him.

"Yeah."

"Ok." He retreated into the bathroom, I shut my door and turned off my light. The episode was over. Or so I thought.

The next morning I woke up. Early. I had groups to arrange, and a meeting that may or may not take up my entire off period. I stepped into the kitchen to attempt to make coffee without my glasses. As I reached to flick on the light I stepped in something wet on the carpet between Sam's room and the kitchen. It was wet. It was pale orange. It had one of those obvious splatter patterns. "Oh my Gawd, he threw up and he didn't clean it up. Ewww..." then I jumped. I hadn't had my cawfee, I was slow to react.

Now it isn't that something like this hasn't happened before. Last spring break we awakened to find a weird cream-of-wheat splatter pattern outside our front door. Five people had slept in our apartment that night. Our staircase isn't very often used therefore we had six suspects:
1) myself
2) Sam
3) Bethany visiting from Boston
4) Travis visiting from Austin
5) Allen who we think slept here but he was gone before the rest of us woke up
6) Stephanie the neighbor whose Financial Times stack up outside her door

The investigation ensued. I was sure it wasn't me. Bethany was sure it wasn't her. I was sure it wasn't Bethany and Bethany was sure it wasn't me. Sam was pretty sure it wasn't him, and Travis was pretty sure it wasn't him. We investigated further. It certainly was someone related to our apartment, it was too close to our door and out of Stephanie path. Unless she went out of her way to throw up on our doorstep. We think she likes us. It didn't make sense.

The oddest thing was that it was clear someone had tried to clean it up. Clean it up badly mind you, but it had been cleaned. There were wipe marks that someone had used a towel to try to clean up the concrete. We never found the towels.

We concluded it must be Allen, or at least that Allen had cleaned it up when he left. That seemed out of character, put possible. Allen later claimed it was not him and that he hadn't even seen it when he left.

The case of the splatter patterns remains a mystery. Our best hypothesis is currently that Stephanie trash bag broke as she was taking it down the stairs. She was in a hurry and concrete is hard to clean without a hose so she did her best and went on her way. If you have any further information please call 1-800-222-TIPS.

Back to Wednesday morning. I concluded that Sam could clean up his own vomit, whatever stains were going to be there were already there. I stepped around it and went on with my day.

I came home Wednesday afternoon and the vomit was still there. Now I was miffed. Not only did he not clean it up when he was drunk, he didn't clean it up before he went to work at noon. What the hell?

I called him at work.

"Hi."

"Hi. How are ya?"

"Good. I've got two things. You're remembering you're picking Mom and Dad up right?"

"Yeah."

"And what's with the carpet?"

"Oh, um that's Vodka Sauce. I tried to get it up, but I felt like I was just rubbing it into the carpet."

"It looks like vomit."

"I know, I thought about that. I thought I'd leave you a note, but I forgot. I was making pasta and I recapped the sauce to shake it. I forgot it wasn't closed all the way, so..."

"You know we're going to clean it up right?"

"Yeah."

"And you know by we, we mean you."

"Yeah I know that we. I'll get it."

"If it doesn't work we can cash in on our free steam cleaning or something, we've already lost our security deposit."

Since then he has commissioned an intern to clean it up. The intern has outsourcing the work and e-mailed me to a) clean up the vodka sauce, b) do his laundry, and c) pick up some glutten free beer. Funny three days later, his laundry isn't done, the vodka sauce is still there and it still looks like florecent vomit. We don't have any glutten free beer. Not sure what all that was about.

Fraud

A couple of weeks ago I got a message from my bank. I called them back within the hour. It seems someone was swiping my credit card at a mall in Jersey. They identified it as fraud and called me within a few hours.

So I had to wonder, what in the world triggered it as fraud? I got my answer when I got the affidavit yesterday.

That I would spend $1000 on clothes in a single day...
That I would walk into an Abercrombie and Finch for more than just to look at the pictures..
That I could possibly spend $300 at a Victoria's Secret (that's a lot of pushing up and tucking in)
That I would have gotten off the turnpike in New Jersey...

Whatever profiling my bank has done on me seems to be accurate. Creepy isn't it? Just imagine what they would get if they tapped my phone.

Teacher and a student

I got an A in my big summer class. Go me. No really go me.
Link to my final project.

Back to school days

Well I'm back to work. After a summer of laziness, Internet classes, and field trips classes have begun I have to say it isn't all that bad. I'm not really a fan of the start of the year laying down the law bits, but it sure is fun to hand out these stickers.

That's right. Stickers. It started in Algebra, it filtered to the TFA folks and I'll admit I was skeptical. Stickers? I teach high school. Don't those stickers have to be laced with something? But no stickers. Stickers when they answer a question. When they bring their book. When they are on time. When they have a pencil. Until I just take off for not having a book and not having a pencil.

I bought quite a little assortment. The Hello Kitty ones seem to be the most popular, though the boys are tolerant of my monarch butterflies. Imagine a 17 year-old boy almost giddy over his Elmo and Spongebob stickers. Wait till I break out the ladybugs.

Seems some kids disappeared over the summer, and three have come to say goodbye in the past few days. My largest class has 24 students, compared to 32 last year (pre-Katrina). My smallest class has seven. I don't think I'll tell anyone. Thus far it is shaping up to be a pretty nice year. Except for those meetings, sometimes democracy is a sham.

On leafy greens and disjointed conversations...

I went to the grocery store yesterday to purchase the following:

1) mandrin oranges
2) Balsalmic dressing
3) olive oil
4) mixed greens with arugala
5) Gargonzola cheese
6) bagles

My grocery store, much like any other grocery store starts with a walk through the produce section. I was there for arugala, and I was pretty sure it was green. I began looking at the signs, reading each one along with the alternate definitions. It wasn't there. I went to the prepackaged salad section and found no mention of arugala. I proceeded to the organic lettuces (letti?) where I found a sign for arugala. I looked below. There was a bunch named "parsley," a bunch named "cilantro" and on down the line. The signs were clearly out of order. Now knowing (from the sign) that I was looking for a bitter vegetable to balance out my mandrin oranges I went down the aisle.

Collard greans, turnip greans, red leaf lettuce, green leaf letuce, beats, mustard greens, romaine, iceburg. No arugala. I gave up and just got a bunch of "mixed greens" figuring if there were arugala to be found I'd bought it.

~ fast forward to this morning ~


A certain roommate of mine accompanied me to Shipley's. We came back and began to drink our coffee and eat our delectable sweet cakes. He'd made jambalaya last night. I told him about the salad in the fridge. "It has mixed greens... hey do you know what arugala looks like?"

"No, Sara would have known."

"Old Sara or engineering Sarah?"

"Old Sara."

"I guess I won't be hearing much of engineering Sarah anymore"

He then proceeds to update me on well, the deeper things in life than work hours, trips to the lake, cleaning and being burned with chemicals, how many shirts he went though that day. He proceeds to tell me about his hopes and his dreams (left out for fear that one might read these hopes and dreams and know who this certian roommate is), about his loves and hates, his fears and all those things that well make him human.

And my response, "so my salad has oranges and gargonzola cheese with hard salami, you eat it with the Balsalmic vinagarette."

He interupted my train of thought. Jerk.

And just so you know arugala looks like this. It isn't in my mixed greens. Bummer.

Terrorism

Perhaps one of the primary reasons that Americans are apathetic is a total disconnect from world events. We simply don't perceive the ripples in our isolated world.

For instance the terrorist arrests in London have thus far had the following effects on my household:

1) The war in Iraq and the war in Israel and other conflicts around the world were not being discussed this morning on NPR. My brother and I decided that Al-Queda was going to target the brewery and the Holocaust museum (where we were today) and almost called in "sick."

2) The facilitator of my social studies meeting (the guy that was justifying his job) left the meeting two hours early. When the cat's away the mice wait around until they won't be caught and then they eat the cheese. By leaving the meeting two hours early I drove home in the afternoon rain and did not go to the grocery store. Thus I ate a frozen dinner around eight.

3) The beer Allen was going to bring back from Iowa will have to be shipped.

4) I'm going to be waking up around 5:30AM on Saturday morning to go to my parents place to take them to the airport.

September 11th had slightly more effects on me:

1) Class wasn't cancelled.
2) My professor was asked to recant his statements that Bush "shouldn't be hiding" by the White House office.
3) I rekindled tension between myself and my rooomate.
4) I bought a shower radio.
5) Airports coming home for Thanksgiving were well, horrid.
6) My mom forgot my birthday.
7) I am forced to listen to historical analysis that discusses the "Post 9-11 world" as though history itself can be divided BWTC and AWTC.

I'm really not that self centered; I estimate however that I'm also not normal.

On teaching government...

Reason number twelve why my health insurance should include massages...

August 7th was my first day back at work. That means today was my second day back at work. It feels like Thursday and I've brought that large bottle of Advil back out onto my bathroom counter. Last night I had one of those tension headaches and tonight my back is tied up in knots. This might be my rationale and motivation for becoming independently wealthy. It has taken me forty hours to make the connection that these might be related circumstances. Now maybe it is the asbestos in the building and my life will be righted when I shift out to the temporaries. In those forty hours I've attended eleven hours of meetings. Some of it was valuable, some of it would be valuable if I hadn't been at the school for three years previously, but easily five hours of it was centered around propaganda which will likely be dropped in a matter of months. I know this because I've been there for three years. Given this is a public forum and most people (I found out today) think that I am a tad sarcastic I shiver to think what might be percieved. I had a chance to leave and I didn't take it for well thought out reasons, mostly having to do with some sort of cracked out sense of social justice, a promise of an easier life, and that whole force of habit. So I'm not going to complain. Much.

pseudonyms and aliases and copyright violations

Bad Jokes from Garrison Keillor

On weddings and high school reunions...

The night began some what harmlessly. A wedding for a neighbor we had in high school, an invitation sent to the four of us with warnings from the other neighbors that 450 people RSVPed affirmative in a church that holds 400.

So we went early. Now the problem with some of these weddings is that you aren't sure there will be alcohol. Particularly when the groom is a youth minister and the bride at one time didn't drink. So on the way though we had to pick up a flask for the whisky.

Walking into the church as we arrived was the collection of neighbors that had been forwarned at the bridal luncheon that the guest list was growing. Then it hit us, this crowd was a Stratford crowd. As in the high school. My brother's prom date, his ex-girlfriend's roommate, the whole MDUMC crowd (including the Caldwell and Lesem sisters), Mark Bogart, my prom date's parents Carol & Ed, the Garfields minus MD, ex-coworkers (since I used to work for the bride's father), the lady that thought I looked like Mary Louise Parker, etc. etc. etc. The church was hot, the wedding sweet, and my brother and I quickly agreed that we needed to mark ourselves as brother and sister rather than as roommates. It is a problem.

The reception was held at a club, not a country club, a club. There was a bar but not enough food to act as a sponge which only became a real problem later. This was the point that the whole occasion turned into a quasi-Stratford dance with little neighbors and Baby Boomers gathered around little tables. There was a couple box stepping to Michael Jackson, we did the chicken dance (but no Village People). We ordered cokes and supplemented the flavor. When Sam got drunk enough he told my mom. She checked his back pockets, I told her it was in my purse. Ten minutes later she was sifting through the purse. Then we told her we'd lied.

Sometime in there cake was cut, I missed that. The sober people left. Sam introduced me to Parker, a TFA kid from Chavez. Scab. Mark and I reminiced over Uncle Jack Tracy and Mr. Gordon Utz, aka eggman. Our class was a class of cheaters. Guess what? Matt Smith and Michelle broke up.


What I didn't miss was the Stratford gang singing the alma mater, a song I never learned - but sounds just like all the other "We sing to you dear ___ High and pledge our loyalty..." songs you hear. See I never went to a pep rally. Not going to pep rallys meant you got to leave school twenty minutes earlier on Friday. Then there were cheers, which I also didn't know. Or forgot, but I'm a quick study "green and white! green and white!" I'm smart, I got that one handled.

I said goodbye to my new friend Parker The Scab and I promised Mark I'd see him again in three years.

Sam is chatty when drunk. He tends to start off on the flaw's of Pascal's wager and Pele's arguement and tells me I need to finish Bertrand Russell. We got home. He picked me up just below my knees and lost balance. I wound up on the floor. He got saltines and a bedtime story. At 4AM he was still sleeping in the hall.

Yea for weddings.