Half way, Quarter way

I'm half way
through my first year of teaching. I was thinking about institute the other day, and it still seems so fresh in my mind those days of planning my first lessons, trying to teach reading and writing (shoot me in the face), not sleeping, and generally not knowing what was going on. Now I look around, and so much has changed...or not ;^) Still have no idea what's going on!

I'm a quarter way
through my TFA obligation. It is weird to think about this endeavor as a period of life with a 'definite' end. When I accepted my TFA placement I intended to work at least 3 years, under the reasoning that if I really believe in making a change in the lives of students, I will do at least 2 years at an 'experienced' level. Maybe I can nitpick and say that I should be making an impact this year, or that 'experienced' doesn't come until 5 years (I have heard this from a couple of veteran teachers), but I still look at 3 as a good amount of time. Still, the 2 year obligation makes it seem like going longer is...odd? I don't know.

Summers
are going to be the greatest thing ever. I am so excited for my first *free* summer in...5 years? Yes. My last free summer was the summer of '02. So there were 4 full years of busyness between my times of blissful freedom :^)
Since the prospect of a free summer is *so* amazing, I have been thinking long and hard about what is truly worthy of my time. Here is my list of possibilities currently:

• www.Rightnow.org is a mission organization that has mission trips for all lengths of times to all different regions. I would definitely go to central or south america, but do not know what I would do.
• Take Spanish classes. This is a variation of the first idea, except I would go to central/south america and enroll in some Spanish classes and otherwise be a bum/partier/find people to help/maybe teach. I looked at buenos aires, and my buddy Max is planning a trip of this sort so I could get on board with that.
• Be a park ranger. Just the thought of being in the backcountry in Rainier National Park gives me chills. AND I would get *paid* for it! This would be spectacular.
• Stay in Houston. This is a more recent option, and one I had not considered until yesterday when I was recruited to me a mentor teacher to a summer school/training program. Ha! ME a mentor teacher! The concept is laughable. BUT the program is for underprivileged students, so the purpose is good. Right now I can tell you that I think I will need a break and should not teach over the summer.
• Get a job. I could try and find an internship doing something. I imagine that some engineering company would not mind having paying a 'real' engineer an interns wages for a summer, but who knows. The only reason to contemplate this would be to get me into some other part of the country with $. For instance if I wanted to be in Seattle for the summer...
• Backpack. I could thru hike the Pacific coast trail. Well, not all of it.

Currently, the Spanish classes are tops on my list. I have actually done research into that (a huge step for me). Do you have experience with any of these options? Suggestion? Please let me know.

But now I finish packing my bags. I fly to the great state of Michigan at 1:20pm this afternoon.

If it does not snow I am going to be pissed.

-mr. Blairwheezie

Dance Supervisor

Today Alief Middle School had a dance.

Yes. That said that a "Middle School had a dance".

Close your eyes and think back to the earliest dance you went to. Middle school preferably.

Okay. Done? Good.

I remember the 1 middle school dance I went to. It was a Halloween dance. I don't remember there being any dancing. ANY. In fact, there were booths with games and food that were the center of attention, not the dancing.

Actually, no, that's not true. There was some moshing. A little. But then we got in trouble and went back to standing on the sides of the gym.

Now, forget all of that, and any experience you had at a middle school dance, because there are a couple of facts that you ought to know about Houston schools.

1. My students all know every single dance to every single song that is played on The Box (radio station. Can't stop Won't Stop!)
2. My students watch more MTV and BET than they sleep. I am sure of it.
3. My students cannot do anything with fractions, but they can rap every lyric from Wanna be a Balla by Lil Troy.
4. My students live in Houston, TX.
   

So, given these facts, it is not really *that* surprising that instead of being a dance like anything from the suburbs, it was, well, horrifying and impressive.

Impressive - man, my students can dance. Like really dance. Break dance even. In fact, they break dance in my room. But only when I let them. Ok. Sometimes when I don't let them.

Horrifying - 6th graders are around 11 years old. There was more attempted dry humping by ELEVEN YEAR OLDS this evening then any person should ever see. Then should be legal. THEY ARE ELEVEN!! I can't handle this.

Supposedly, I am a role model or something, so I break up anything that gets to overt, but really, gahhh! I can't even think about it anymore.

There's really only one thing to do.

I think I need to go to a club and freak some hoes.

Rested and eager ambivalence

I couldn't sleep last night.

Every time I take a break from teaching for longer than the customary 2 day weekend, I get nervous. I don't know why. Maybe I subconsciously think that I will forget what I am doing. Maybe all my kids will come back from break and realize that I don't know what I am doing. Maybe my kids will decide I am boring (too late! Ha!). I don't know.

But, I couldn't sleep last night. So I drugged myself. This is pretty much my standard recourse when I feel sleeping is a mandatory commodity. And actually, this is only the second or third time that I have had *any* trouble sleeping since I have been teaching.

Even though I drugged myself, I woke up at 4:10 am. I couldn't sleep anymore. So I got up.

Surprisingly enough, I felt really rested today. That was awesome. It was a joy to see my kids again, which was also awesome. My patience was back (well sort of). And I loved teaching again.

But, I got done today, and now I don't feel like doing anything. Absolutely nothing. So I am making garlic mashed potatoes from a recipe that I just made up. It's not much of recipe. I boiled potatoes, mashed em up, put in some butter, salt, pepper, garlic (the jar variety), and onion flakes.

I was going to steam vegetables and eat baked chicken too, but then I realized I wasn't hungry.

So I think I am going to go to bed without doing any work and hope for more motivation in the morning. That is my new default reaction to lack of motivation.

And I know I will have that motivation because I haven't written my lesson plans for tomorrow yet. So I will have to get them done.

I can't help but think this is a shoddy way of approaching my job. It is not like I need a break, because I just had one. It is not that I don't care about my kids, because I do.

I need some other possible excuses. Got any?

Thanksgiving Thoughts

Thanksgiving = awesome
1 week off for Thanksgiving = genius

These two equations pretty well summarize my thoughts on this past 8 days of glorious in activity. I visited just about every person I know who lives in Indiana, ate great food, talked about everything there is to talk about, watched a bunch of movies, ran around, laughed, played tennis, enjoyed wearing a t-shirt in Indiana in NOVEMBER! and altogether had a great time.

Now I am back in Houston, and more pressing thoughts are on my mind.
Like what do I want to do with my hair. This is serious business. I am a supposedly professional person now, and yet I am growing my hair long (it hasn't seen shears since July). It is just entering the putrid state of always ugly, that usually prompts some rash decision making on my part.

And really, what do I even want from it? Am I really going to go hippie-tastic all over Alief Middle School? I kinda don't think so.

I mean I could. Mr. Esparza has his hair in a pony-tail every day. It's long. But getting to that point is so painful.

What sucks is that having my hair in the short, gelled spiky variety that was my staple is so boring now. I just don't even want to contemplate it.

The more I think about it, the more I see that I have only two choices: hippie-tastic longness or buzzed. I just can't deal with anything else. And to top it off, people who tell me things tell me that it doesn't look 'good' in either mode. No, these people are definite fans of the clean cut, professional spiky haired jake. Who is lameo.

So I don't know what I am going to do.

About the hair anyway. I do know I am going to go eat an amazing sandwich today.

The problem with this "to be continued" crap is that the momentum is now gone. Not to mention all the pressure brought about by certain members of the reading community and their demands.

I read over my previous post and said "Uh huh. So what?" And then didn't really think anything else. I don't know where I was going with this. So I will take this to the conclusion that now appears to be the only logical one, although it doesn't seem all that interesting. Let that be your forwarning.

The question then becomes "Where will I get my 'fix' of spirituality and significant relationships?" When I initially did the interest inventory, I thought that spirituality would be a cinch. In all my past experiences moving to a new place, God has provided a community for spiritual growth in an amazing and powerful way. They all included a new positive spiritual influence and a church, with no planning or foreknowledge by me. So I assumed that God would take care of this again here.

The significant relationships I also thought would be handled easily, partly from the "new positive spiritual influence" referenced above, and then partly from regular communication with the people who already play a significant role in my life.

Both of these assumptions turned out to be pseudo-true.

When I manage weekly communication, I am anchored, but all to often I miss a week or three because of busyness. And then I float off the deep end.

No really. (Maybe this is where I was going with this. A giant unveiling of my weird psyche.) When I miss these 'significant relationships', all the smaller ones, which afford me so much opportunity for fun and stress release suddenly seem burdensome. I sit in on Saturday night and my mind says "You don't want to be out tonight. You're tired. You don't really want to see anybody." And I believe it. But it's not true. My mind will continue this inward spiral until I have a weekend where I don't leave the apartment, have eaten every single consumable I own and feel like death. Then my roommate or someone will say "Hey were going to yadda yadda", I will go because it's so easy, I will have a great time and then be like "What the hell was I doing? I willfully felt like crap for no reason."

And I think my question is very accurate. "What the hell" *was* I doing?

So I really love people. I also really love laughing. But sometimes my mind decides to try and ruin my life by making me think I don't want to see any people. Which is not very funny at all.