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.