Burns, Evil Landlord, and Straight Up AWESOME!

Man alive! I've been wanting to update all weekend, but I haven't gotten the chance. It's been a madhouse around here in my mind it seems like. I've been trying to find new ideas for teaching and trying to get ahead, but i've not been very successful. I thought I would have a few hours tomorrow to really work on things, but now Randy has me booked observing classrooms. He put me in kindergarten for two hours! I don't need to know how to handle kindergarteners, I need to know how to fix my problem with the third and fifth graders. This is just really frustrating. It's hard enough for me as a licensed teacher to allow myself to be scheduled for observations of other teachers. That's a real whack and bruise on my pride as an educator. But now, it's not even helping me find a solution to my problem!

I don't have a choice though. I don't want to complain or ask for a switch because I don't want to look like I'm unwilling to do what I need to do. I want to get better, but in the areas I'm struggling with right now. Prof Cox says that this kindergarten teacher has a rough class and she's young, so I can understand the parallels I guess...I appreciate him taking me under his wing, but I'm not a complete newbie student anymore. I've done a lot of good things here. He keeps saying I have a lot of potential, but then I always feel like what I'm doing isn't good enough for people. I don't even know if any of that makes sense. I guess we'll see.

I fight this battle every day. Many times I can't figure out why I get up in the morning. I keep searching for answers, for clues. I hope to eventually find out what in the world is going on in my life. Over the last week, I've been hearing the song "Your love never fails, it never gives up, it never runs out on me" over and over and over again. At least something's not running out. because I sure am.

Expression sometimes comes perfectly through music. This is something I've been able to grab hold of. Songs are what can most easily speak to my heart. I've had several questions as to why I listen to certain things that I do, but there's always a reason. There's always a message I wish I could communicate. What I listen to is often a very good indicator of what I'm thinking or feeling or what mood I'm in.

Anyway, all that to say, I don't listen to a whole lot of mainstream stuff. I pick and choose. That crap's just getting worse and worse. I thought they were already singing and rapping about sex and alcohol too much. Oh no. They found a way to do more. So I just leave it all alone. Every once in a while though, something will catch me by surprise when I flip through when my iPod dies. This happened to me the other day. These are the lyrics that really struck me:

Ever worried that it might be ruined
And does it make you wanna cry?
When you're out there doing what you're doing
Are you just getting by?
Tell me are you just getting by by by

Where there is desire
There is gonna be a flame
Where there is a flame
Someone's bound to get burned
But just because it burns
Doesn't mean you're gonna die
You've gotta get up and try try try
Gotta get up and try try try

It hit me because I am a young woman of many desires, many dreams. Nothing hurts unless you care about something. The more deeply you care about something, the more it kills you when things don't go the way they "should" or "ought" to go.

Music expresses things that are deep within our soul. Even in all the crap so many Hollywood stars produce, they're covering up deep aches and unanswered questions with shallow, meaningless things that have become saturated in evil as a means of escape.

And then there's those times when they do what some artists are afraid to do: they get flat out real. But I won't get into my opinions on music or the views I hold on it. I just wanted to share the song that has been playing in my head over and over and over again. All the frustrations I feel everyday, pressed in on from every side, can't really kill me, no matter how much they burn.

On an entirely different note of interest, I'm not sure how much Mom has said to anyone on the subject of the landlord incidence last night. Long story short...

Kurt, the landlord is a little crazy. Okay, he's a lot crazy. When I met him, he was creeping around the empty house. Like, creeping. I'm not kidding. It terrified me. I was thinking, what in the world is a strange man doing creeping around in my yard. It was unnerving. Their whole family does it since they own the huge storage garage in the back. But come on. Don't be that guy. We already have lost claim on most of the driveway for a few months so they can get back there 24/7. That ticks me real good. We're paying rent and we can't even use the driveway.

Anyway, he was a real passive agressive jerk while we talked, and then he emailed me in the same manner. Then he would get upset because I didn't respond within a few hours. I'm sorry sir, I work 70+ hours a week. Answering your crazy emails about leaves is not my number one priority. Paying rent and student loans? Yes, now that is.

We made a deal with our friend Karl that we would do his laundry if he would keep up the lawn for us.  He's really done a fantastic job. But after I forwarded him the email from Kurt about the leaves, he was just as ticked off at him as we usually are. He is so annal about everything! It's ridiculous! We have taken better care of this house than anyone else before us. But it makes no difference to him I guess. The sad thing is, he's a missionary and he treats us like crap, ordering us around like dogs. It's awful. But it's all passive agressive. Until last night.

Tiffany came home to a dark house, at night, alone. Shouldn't be a problem since she lives there. But there was some guy literally stalking around the house. She was on the phone with her friend and told her to stay on the line because she may need her to call someone for her. Tiff hung out in her car for a couple minutes and he starts creeping around her car. WTF???

She carefully gets out and he goes "We need to meet!" and starts off on this rant about needing to set up a meeting. Mind you, he had emailed me just the night before and I told him that we would not be able to all meet with him and getting one or two would be the best we could do because we're all so busy. Then he claims that's not what he wanted. Whatever. He's going on and on on this psycho rant and Tiffany just interjects and says "I'm sorry, but who are you?"

"I'm Kurt. Kurt Strietzel. I OWN this house! And we need to meet!" Sidenote: I told him this week wasn't any good because of Thanksgiving. We weren't going to be around. Next Tuesday would be the first chance we'd get. But oh no. He's creeping around our house. This is the first time Tiffany has ever met him mind you because they're overseas missionaries.

"I thought you were communicating to Steph about meeting up with someone."

"I WAS, but she hasn't gotten back to me!" (Uh....phyco-man? Excuse me, you just emailed me last night and I've been working all day. K thanks.)

So he keeps going on about how they have to meet and Tiffany tells him she's sorry, but it's not happening tonight. Then he goes on a complete new path and chews her out for her foggy headlights. Like reams her. Another sidenote: Tiff was on the phone with her best friend because she was having an emotional breakdown. Now she has this phyco in front of her who couldn't care less.

He finally drops it about the headlights and goes off about meeting again. She said she was free between jobs at 2:30 and went inside. She asked her friend if she had heard what had happened and she said her friend sounded petrified on the other end and said "I honestly thought I was going to hear you get killed over the phone."

Super.

When I got home, we all talked, Courtney was livid, Tiffany shaken and angry, and me completely floored and wanting to punch a hole in the wall of his precious house at the same time. So we compromised and Tiffany sent him an email and copied us all in for records. She confirmed the meeting at 2:30 and said Courtney would be available to be there as well. However, there had been a policy by previous owners or something that the man would only enter the house if his wife was present and entering as well. She said we really like this policy and asked to check his wife's availability. If she was not avaiable, we would need to reschedule, the same time next week is free.

I guess she wasn't available. He's coming over at 8. Kal told us his neighbor has a shotgun they would let him borrow. Kal standing over me with a shotgun is not something you wanna mess with. He'd tear Kurt apart with his fists if he dared cross the line. Kurt doesn't want a shotgun there too....ha.

The shotgun isn't really coming along, guys. Come on. You should know that. Stretch with the exaggeration. Or else the exaggeration looks real.

Speaking of handsome men defending their women, today is a GREAT DAY! Today, Kal and I have been dating for a year :) YAY LIFE! Just in case you wanted to celebrate with me :)

I also just found out I only have one class tomorrow. Everyone's doing a Read In. There won't be any classes, just reading and lots of it. So it turns out the observations won't be as inconvenient anyway. Well, I have cutting out to do and a relationship to celebrate.

Oh...I gotta pack too...yikes. Well, we shall see won't we. After I was up really late last night and got up early this morning to do a deep clean of the house so Krazy Kurt won't have a reason to get set off, I should be able to find things really easily in order to pack.

Until next time!

The Monday Wednesday

It seems to be that Monday didn't think it hit me hard enough the other day so it decided to have another go at my life. I gave myself an extra half hour of sleep last night and woke up at 6:30 since I had everything ready to go for today and didn't have to be in early for anything. However. I was apparently still very sleep deprived.

Things didn't ever seem to fall into place, which is normal after I roll out of bed. As the minutes slipped by, I very quickly accepted that this was just how today was going to run. Which was good. Because it got me through my second Monday morning of the week. At least I wasn't the one who woke up and dragged all the trash out to the curb thinking it was Thursday like my poor house-mate. Oh Grace. Poor thing.

Ten minutes after I was supposed to be leaving, I popped my bagel in the toaster because I needed breakfast. I'd already downed two cups of coffee before I even left the house. When my bagel popped up, I retrieved my strawberry cream cheese from the refrigerator, grabbed a knife, dug in....and just about spread it all over my phone. My bagel was still on the other side of the kitchen in the toaster.

You can laugh. It's okay. I did.

When I got to school, I poured myself another cup of coffee.

During fourth grade success, however, the very first class of the day, I lost some of that coffee; and no, not to a student in a bet. In fact, I kept  it on my person. Literally.

We were playing games online to practice multiplication. I had it all projected on the board and was clicking what number they shouted out as the answer. I reach over, pick up my cup, pour it into my mouth...only my mouth wasn't there. I don't know how. So I dumped a good portion of coffee all down my front as I'm standing there with the kids. I looked at myself, at them, chuckled, and said, "Well, Miss Lawson's crazy."

Again, you may laugh at my expense. I did. As did the fourth graders.

And I continued teaching. With coffee down my front.

After I dropped them off at their classrooms, I went to the bathroom, knelt under the hand dryer, and got to work. The coffee, which was supposed to me warming and waking was making me cold. I wore a yellow shirt today, and the coffee marks were just dark enough to be sort of noticeable. So, I laughed at myself, buttoned up my cardigan, laughed at myself again, and went to get my third graders for math class.

You can still see one of the marks at the top of my shirt and a little at the bottom, but with the "whatever" attitude I'd donned earlier, I was a-okay, Mickey.

I got a cappucino from the lounge after lunch too so I could sip on it while fifth grade success and I learned about the solar eclipse that happened this morning in Australia and use the article to work on Main Idea....

Needless to say, I was kind of wired by the time I got to fifth grade math class. Hehe.

The good news, is that the Grace volleyball team needs players for practice tonight from 5:30-7:30! Andria Harshman texted me and said they were really injured right now and could really use some outside hitters. They're getting ready for regionals this weekend. It was perfect. I'll be here at school until 5 with BYC, then I can head home and change (and do the fastest shave known to mankind), and head to the OCC! I warned her that I'll be pretty rusty and I may be a few minutes late since I'll have to change and drive from Leesburg, but she said I have til 6 til they start playing.

Winner winner!

I know this is all kind of sloppily jotted. But I'm still in a kind of "whatever" type mood. I have my symphony music playing, everything ready for tomorrow, so that's good, and I'm feeling pretty chillaxed. So I have just enough time to write something quickly before I head over to the cafeteria for BYC.

Which I should probably get to. It's been fun!

So, until the next great adventure....

Deeper

I've said it a lot over the last couple days. More so than I would care to admit. I'm scared. There's a lot of life that is still uncertain. I run when there's something I don't understand. I'm good at hiding behind a curtain specifically designed to create an illusion of confidence. This curtain only holds because I never let anyone close enough to pull it back. Yet that's all that remains of my  confidence. It's as flimsy and unreliable as that curtain.

The quick answer then is to have someone remind me that God is my strength and confidence and that He will provide for me exactly what I need when the time is right. But maybe a quick answer isn't what I need. In a lot of ways, I believe that the quick, easy answer is just as dangerous as the predicament itself, if not more so. To try and satisfy a deep ache in our souls with a quick answer because it's a simple, easy way out now is just as much running away from the present circumstance as busying ourselves with extra hours at work or stuffing our schedules with pointless activities to occupy our minds. No matter how true the previous  statement is about God being my strength does not make it a satisfactory answer. I would like to think it is. I would like to say that I can rest on that knowledge with confidence and certainty and never look back or have this unsettling feeling bother me again. But that's just not what happens. I don't have a quick easy answer for when the world seems to be falling apart. Such an answer I do not believe exists on this side of eternity. Why do we comfort each other with such repetitive answers that, though one hundred percent true, are only cotton balls sopping up the gushing blood from a gaping hole in the body. It's not enough.

We would like to think it is, and we cringe at the thought that God being our answer isn't enough. How dare you say that it isn't enough! Well, I never said that, did I. I never said God wasn't enough. I said the answers that we feed each other are just a bunch of fluff. It's while we wrestle with the toughest aches and battles of life that we find true, deeply satisfactory answers to life's biggest question marks. If we throw some cotton on top and move on, we never truly deal with the deeper ache. We simply cover it up and pretend it doesn't exist.

I am a pro in the art of this game. Words are kind of my thing. My biggest fears come from issues in my heart that I can't put words to. If I cannot put them to my words, I do not have them under my whip and control. So instead, I pretend they don't exist and my life is full of coffee and pumpkin cheesecake. Well, there's a rat in that kitchen destroying my place of peace, but I hurry out and the swinging door closes and no one in the dining room is aware of the chaos of the chefs in the back. Is that not the way of the world anymore? We don't like to have problems, and we like even worse the people who know we have problems.

That's exactly where I think I fall right now. I desire for freedom from this questioning, but my soul is looking for more than the quick, right now answer. I want desperately to discover Him in the midst of all of this. I would much rather find him than simply settle for being told He's there.

I'm probably not even making any sense. All I know is that my heart yearns for something deeper. And as I run from task to task and job to job, I don't feel my heart being satisfied. Everything is covered up for a time, and for a moment I don't feel the pain of my present circumstances. But is that really what's best for me? Isn't  it in moments like these that we can truly meet God? Why would I want to not embrace these days. If I suffer, isn't that where God promised to be? Isn't that where He promised to deliver us? How can I experience that if I throw myself down and give up, filling the void and hole of despair with busyness? (<--- can't decide how that word should be spelled...I typed it with an i and a y and finally just settled for this one...haha!)

Yet I don't want to embrace this. It hurts. I want to escape. I want to numb myself because it's easier. I don't want to fight this battle. Most often, I don't feel strong enough to. But if I give in to the pressures and pains, how will I ever know the joy of making it through? The joy of the fulfillment of Christ being everything that I need. How will I ever come to really know that Christ is enough if I don't allow myself to fall and see if He catches me?

I'm scared.

I'm scared to death of what's to come. I have four days to dish out some mega "change" to start the loan repayment process. I work my butt off and get extremely underpaid. I never get the time to make connections with people because all I do is work and get ready for work and make lesson plans and stay after school. I don't even keep up with my appearance like I should, nor do I have the time to adequately clean up my living space. I spent some time doing this yesterday because I was tired of feeling like a rat.

God never promised us an easy path. In fact, Wednesday morning, when I saw the results of the election, I stood outside at the end of parent drop-off and cried and called out to God begging for mercy. For kids like me...we're royally screwed. I know that for a fact. I read all these horror stories of those in the medical field and I just cry. What kind of world have we become? God, save us! I'm stuck between the desire to want the end times to hold off til I've experienced marriage and family and all that good feel-y momma stuff in my heart, but then I ask myself if I really want to bring children into this awful world and condemn them to these same problems I now face.

I'm glad I'm not in charge of that decision.

A long, difficult path lies ahead of me, and I have the decision to lay down in the dust and pity myself, or I can tie my ratted shoes a little tighter and march forward....just so long as there's no tarantulas in this desert, I'll think I'll be just fine.

The Spontaneous Adventures of Teacher-ing

It has been a very exciting 24 hours. Up until about 5:50 last night, the only thing I had to share with you was that I have a third grader who's constantly asking me "Miss Lawson, are we gonna have homework? Can you bring me more homework? Miss Lawson can I have more homework to do at BYC?" I only have so many resources at my disposal, kid. I can't use them all up to give you extra homework, although I do love you're enthusiasm. It never fails. Every time I see him, he's asking me for more homework pages. He gets all excited about it, like he's thinking that one day, my answer will change and I'll whip out an entire pack of time homework for him to work on.

Anyway. Back to the excitement.

After school yesterday, I was all excited about getting to go home early. I was going to be home by 6! However, I decided to go collect some pages I threw together for homework next week for fifth grade math from the fifth and sixth grade workroom when this really big older guy stops me and asks where the cafeteria is. He was real scraggly lookin' so I was hesitant to inform him where he could find children. I'd never seen him before. But by that time, all the BYC kids should've been gone, so I figured, what the heck. I directed him down the hall to where the doors were opened and he said there was no one down there (so why did you ask if you've already been there??). Anyway, he said he was looking for his granddaughter, to pick her up from the after school program. "Where do you pick them up?" Well heck if I know, I'm thinking, I only work the tutoring part until 5:00. Great. But it's almost 6:00 and there's no one in the building, so I'm the one who's gotta figure this out. We walk down to the gym and cafeteria area and there was a fifth or sixth grader who said she saw a little blond girl and another girl go to Miss Umbaugh's room in fifth grade. So we walked down there and they were there, but they weren't who he was looking for. So we checked the EL teacher's room who runs BYC and it was dark and there was no one there, same with the office.

All the time, I'm getting a little anxious, mostly because I can't move at a pace that's comfortable in a situation like this. I wanna be able to book it down the halls, I'm a fast walker anyway, but I have this guy who's huge and waddling behind me. UGH! I wanted to go home! Yeah, it was a selfish thought, but it's true.

We ran into one of the kindergarten teachers and asked if she'd seen a little first grader running around. She hadn't. We returned to the office to find out if we could radio the buses and I ran off to keep looking. She apparently discovered how to use the PA system through the school and called the girl to the office. No one ever came.

I ran into the music teacher and asked her since she had been at BYC with me, but she hadn't seen her. She and I looked through all the BYC stuff to see who we could contact that may have any information.

While we're running around, one of the sixth grade teachers shows up wanting to know what all the commotion's about. He calls the principal who jumps in his car to get back to school but gets stuck behind a train. Poor guy. We were hesitant to call grandma at home because she has anxiety issues and we didn't want to give her a heart attack. But we had to call eventually to see if she could possibly be home. But no one answered. We had the director for BYC in our building, a couple workers from last night, and the principal all going on different phones between a couple of people, and the music teacher and I ended up just standing in the corner for moral support because there was nothing else we could do. The transportation office was closed, no one was answering their radios on the buses. It was a nightmare. We all start freaking out inside that this scared little first grader had gotten off the bus at the trailer partk in fear of being left behind and was out alone wandering....we knew she'd gotten on the second bus. After hearing the description of what she had been wearing, the music teacher remembered distinctly seeing her enter the library with the gang who rode the second bus. But after that, we had nothing.

Long story short....grandma called back and the little girl was at home. She had the courage to speak up when the bus didn't go to her house and the driver took her home. Grandma had been trying to call the school but the office was closed and she didn't know anyone's extention. And grandpa had left his phone at the house. Oh golly.

The whole thing seemed so unreal. This stuff happens, sure, but to experience it and have the feeling of being so close to the situation was unsettling. Needless to say, I did not get to leave school early. I wasn't home until 7:20 which is even later than usual.

Today then, had adventures all its own. It was going to be a more laid back day from the get-go since I only had to plan for three of my six classes. However, we got an email from the principal the other day telling us we were going to run through fire, tornado, and lock down drills at 10:40. This is in the middle of my third grade math class. By the time I got everyone settled in the classroom and done with the success time pre-test, it was drill time. For the next half hour, we jostled to and fro making sure the kids knew what to do. For the most part, they did pretty well. On the lock down though, they were only quiet like they should be for about a minute while I briefly explained what this drill was for. Then, naturally, they all had questions. I explained to them what I would do if someone from school was in the hall, why we gathered in that certain corner, etc., etc. Of course, then one student asked what we would do if the bad guy got in the classroom. I was honest. They would get me before they got them. Naturally, this sparked a whole lot of super-teacher-fighter scenerios and it was all over. There was no retrieving them. Then, just as class ended, one of the boys from the class came in (because I didn't actually lock the door for the drill). All 17 of them started screaming and freaking out....oh...my....gosh...Of course, that's my own dang fault. I should've known this kid was going to show up eventually. I'm just glad I didnt' have to teach anything after that.

Just before this craziness, I returned to the room from helping out in fourth grade and there was a gift on my desk. I had seen this idea on some teacher blog somewhere and had seen a few of the "PLUCKED" signs on some doors, but I never expected it to come to me. So, I have been plucked! The directions were such:

1. Enjoy your treat.
2. Place the PLUCKED sign on your door.
3. Within 2 days, make 2 copies of this note, make 2 treats & 2 PLUCKED signs.
4. Secretly deliver to 2 neighbors/friends without a PLUCKED sign.
5. Keep an eye on doors to see how far and fast it spreads by Thanskgiving. Don't forget support staff.

In the bag, I found a simple travel mug, a box of Swiss Miss hot chocolate (with marshmellows!), a mocha cappuccino mix, and a box of Pop Weaver kettle corn. Someone has seen me always with something hot in my hands! I couldn't believe someone had taken the time to do that. of course, now I have to figure out something nice for two other teachers/staff members. I have no idea what I'm gonna do. I'm not a good gift giver. I'm awful. I never have any good ideas, and I'm broke. So that's what I get to be thinking about this weekend. I'll have to go by Dollar Tree. I found those huge glass mugs there for Wade and my Harry Potter night two weeks ago, so they're bound to have something I can use.

I did have to go on a mini adventure today with the EL teacher. She needed to go to WalMart for some drawers to further organize her classroom and I needed candy for my fifth grade math class. I had to "steal" some from the office for third grade because after last night's fiasco, I completely forgot to go by and pick some up, so I needed to replace that too. Second grade had changed their plans for today without telling us so neither of us had second, third, or fifth grade success. So we had from 11:30 to 2:00 with nothing scheduled. So we set the work aside, went to lunch as Subway and got what we needed from WalMart. We've had a lot of good discussions about life and teaching over the last few weeks. I'm very appreciative of her. She's real easy to get along with and she loves her students. She graduated a year before I did, so she understands the mess I feel like I'm in. I did gather from her yesterday that if you work at a Title 1 school for five years, you get some of your student loans taken away. Something for me to consider...

Of course, as I consider it, I realize how much of a pain that could cause me. My fifth grade math class was horrible. I had such a good day until they showed up. I'd gone into all that trouble to make sure I had candy for them today and they lost it for behavior. I'm too dang nice. That's why they're so awful. Maybe now that I took candy away once they'll get it in their heads that I'm serious. I'm gonna have to start taking letters away on their citizenship report too. I just hate punishment. I do. Just do what you're supposed to be doing. You're in fifth grade, haven't you figured this out by now?

However...I just had one of my third grade math kids walk into my room and give me a cookie! It's his birthday! He said he was dying to tell me during class. I feel bad that we had a crazy day with drills. We could've sang to him....I guess I'll just celebrate by eating this wonderful cookie and drinking terrible school coffee. It's just office coffee. But somehow worse. Folgers must be worse than Maxwell House like they use in the church office...

Well, I'll be done with my novel here. Thanks for sticking around this long, and sorry it's been a few days since I've been able to put anything up. It's usually what gets between me and writing in the end: time. But I'm gonna go warm up my coffee with more terrible coffee....until next time!

Stephanie

An Unexpected Treat

Typically, I enjoy having a general plan of attack to everything I do. If the plan is too rigid, I find it distasteful, however, if the plan is too loose, or there is no plan at all, I find my mind begin to panic. In the world of education, I know this to be even more true. There is so much pressure in this job that without an effective plan, there cannot be effective teaching.

I walked in with no plan this morning.

Every Monday morning, the week seems to stretch out endlessly before me. It was never this way in college. There were plenty of things to break it up and lots of time to move around before you had to be somewhere else. Now, I stay in the same building all day long, day after day, doing the same things over and over again, always feeling about twelve steps behind where I should be. This particular Monday seemed even worse. I was super excited to be leaving the house early when I noticed that we had some frost. Ha! I say "some frost", but that would be much better than what I encountered. I pulled out my handy-dandy scraper and dug my car out in a quick-as-a-jiff 16 minutes. When I arrived at school, later than I wanted, I found that out of my four success groups, I didn't know what I was supposed to be doing in a single one of them.

I spent all morning running up and down the hallways and discussing with all the classroom teachers, trying to figure out what in the world I was supposed to be doing! (And yet, complaints were passed at one time about my lack of preparedness....? Whatever. I do what I can.) I didn't find out about what was going on in fifth grade until I was running late to third grade success right before I had to run to meet with the second grade teachers over lunch to make up the success groups for this week. So I had to pull five rabbits out of the hat all at the same time.

I had the usual struggles with fifth grade math. I gave them an opportunity to correct their tests and review pages and regain half of their missed points because they all have a C or lower, yet they didn't really take advantage of it. So now I can't give them that opportunity again. I hate that. I want them to succeed so badly, but none of them take it seriously. Or they just think that because they understand the process they don't have to do the work anymore. HELLO KID! You're still missing problems because you're not taking the time to do them correctly!

Whatever.

On the plus side, I fixed all the hook ups in the classroom! For the last three weeks, I haven't been able to project anything from the computer up on the board because something came unhooked somewhere, and the sound wasn't working either. This morning, the fourth graders wanted to listen to music while they were doing their division work, so I crawled under the desk and got to work. I've been meaning to talk to some of the tech people at school, but I just haven't had the spare time. So unfortunate. But, being the highly capable college graduate that I am, I used my keen deduction and rearranging skills to play Sherlock Holmes and discover the solution to my dilemma.....

....I think I kicked the cord and it came unplugged from the back of the computer. Oops. I also found that one of the kids had played with the keypad on the wall by the door while we were leaving and had turned the volume all the way down on the system. No wonder I couldn't hear a thing! Kids. With all the button pushing and unplugging and reattaching of cords, I finally figured it all out.

No worries, nothing blew up and nothing's fried. I am a college grad genius after all.

Now that everything's working as it should again, I played a "Mozart" list on Pandora all day while I worked. It completely kept me sane despite all the madness. I was able to get the second grade success stuff all sorted out with ease of mind thanks to my beautiful symphony music :)

I still have a lot of homework, especially because time is due at Ruby's again tonight, but I feel better. I'll be making this music a habit during work. The rehooking of all the thing-a-ma-jiggers brought an unexpected but very welcome peace to my hectic Monday. Tomorrow should run smoother since I'll have a better idea of what's going on...at least, that's the plan. When do things ever work out as they should?

Oh well. No matter what happens, someone's bound to walk by and see me grading papers at the reading table, directing an imaginary symphony. Stay tuned for that adventure....

Unless they keep interrupting it with the PA system like happened a lot during my prep time at the end of the day. Then I may just be cranky at the office people. If you need to hold a discussion to figure out what needs to be announced, do that before you cut off my music! I don't care to hear what you're talking about!!!

:) Smiles.

To Begin...

I've debated for a long period of time whether or not I should start a blog. I seem to have a lot to say when it comes to it, but I can never seem to decide if anyone would want to hear my random ramblings about the stage of life in which I currently find myself. The pickles of day to day living are sometimes too much for my poor young mind to bear, and I discover that unwinding through words is a wonderful way to dismantle the issue piece by piece before it plants too deeply in one of the spaces of my mind to grow, forgotten, until it's big enough to make itself known again.

Besides, all those who I hold most dear to my heart are all over two hundred miles away and it is quite the challenge to keep everyone in the loop. Therefore, I guess I'll try this out. I love to write, and with my cramped stick letters of my handwriting, I find it difficult to do much of it so I guess this would be a good solution. We'll try it. I hate not having everyone close to me. It's not like I'm out of the country traveling the world or teaching in China, but Indiana can be a lonely place with hardly any friends and family within quick driving distance.

So here's to the start of something new, like most things in my life at this point. The journey continues as I take a brand new step every morning.