Juggling Life

Coming Home . . .

Mr. Fix-it is coming home tomorrow--to stay for two weeks! His new schedule will have him half the month in San Diego and half the month in Salt Lake City; this is a huge improvement over most of the time in SLC.

We (he, me and Social Butterfly; all that's left here on the homefront) are sooooo happy about this. We miss each other.

Now I can finally go see Crazy, Stupid Love which came out like five weeks ago and I've heard great things about--it seemed like a movie we'd enjoy seeing together, so I wanted to wait for him. Also? I can start catching up on Rescue Me--it's one of "our" shows, so I wouldn't watch without him--they're all TiVoed. I have, however, been watching Weeds--I love the man, but I do have limits.

My neighbors will be very happy to see Mr. Fix-it because that mean someone will finally mow our lawn. Danger Boy was doing it until he left and I meant to start doing it, then it got a little too long and I was sure the lawnmower would mow one small swath and then stop and that would look worse than the whole thing overgrown. So I waited.

I'm done waiting!

 

Making Technology Work for Me

Because I am teaching in adult education and most of the students have a multititude of life interruptions that might cause them to miss class, I text them what about what work they've missed. Today I hit on a much easier way to do it than the wordy text message I've been sending.

Soooo much faster.

Never a Dull Moment (Though I Wouldn't Mind One)

Friday night I was at a friend's house relaxing with amazing appertizers and a magical martini glass (it always had a full Cosmo in it) when my friend (a substitute teacher for 10 years now) informed me that she'd been told by the administrative assistant at our neighborhood elementary school that they could no longer use her for a standing job she'd been doing for several years.

The reason?

Priority for sub jobs MUST be given to laid-off teachers (240 as of now). This means that a teacher or school CANNOT request you unless the job has been offered to and declined by those 240 teachers.

I did some checking into this and it is indeed true and is part California Ed Code (thanks, Ms. Teacher!).

I have several issues with this:

• From an academic standpoint a teacher having a reliable sub he/she is comfortable using and who knows the school climate means that actual education happens when the regular teacher is not there. Also? Not all teachers make good subs.
• From a personal perspective as someone who has relied on this as my income, those laid-off teachers are eligible for unemployment while those of us who are effectively losing our jobs are not.
• From another perspective altogether--I pay dues and am a member of the union. Since I pay you money and you purport to represent me, you might have wanted to give me a heads up about  this . . . several months ago.

Not that it will change anything, but I will be calling the union and human resources to discuss this.

Changes in education policy are happening both formally and informally around the country, primarily in the form of cuts. While online classes are filling some of the holes in school programs, their questionable quality keeps them from being a viable option for every subject. Further, there are many classes and activities that remain unfilled and many teachers that wish to fill them, but are unable to. These policies can sometimes make it difficult for teachers who keep their classrooms to overcome the politics and give their undivided attention to their students.

You know I am Miss Silver-Lining--I am choosing to be very happy that I did not completely walk away from my current job over the brouhaha. That,  however, doesn't help my friends.

 

Note: This post has been ever so slightly supported by an outside source.

 

 

 

The Craziest Story I Ever Sort of Told You

The bloggers among you know that it is excrutiating not to be able to blog a big happening in your life. Still, sometimes circumspection is required. This past week has been one helluva lunatic, non-bloggable week. Even crazier than the tires being slashed story which, as you recall, necessitated an entirely new password-protected blog.

Thus, I will attempt to give you a sense of the crazy without all the details.

• It was work-related.
• It involved a superior.
• There was also student involvement (though not via me).
• There was a major, through-the-wee-hours-of-the-night social media, and therefore quite public, screed directed at me.
• I had occasion to use the phrase "bizarre behavior that might lead one to be concerned about potential acts of violence" several times during conversations with several people over the course of a few days.
• I also used the phrases "hostile workplace." It's effective.
• I didn't work on Monday and Tuesday. I'm back at work. Somebody else is no longer with the company.
• It was very naive of me to think that if you just do the best job you know how to do you'll never have problems at work. Woefully naive.
• Nobody hates a good teacher like a bad teacher.

Thank goodness it's Friday. Truly.

Strolling Down Memory Lane

Monday night Social Butterfly was filling out all her kickoff forms for high school; it made her nostalgic, so she pulled out her Lillian Vernon School Days book and started looking through it.

This note was written in the summer between Kindergarten and first grade shortly after her Nana and Papa moved to Minnesota.

 

Dear Nana and Papa, I miss you a lot. I can't wait 'til school is in because my brothers are getting on my nerves. Love you.

I miss best-guess spelling!

Also?

I really can't wait until I get a letter like this from a grandchild.

BlogHer . . . The Part that Freaked Me Out

I said I was done with BlogHer posts. I misspoke. This has been rattling around in my head and I want to share it with you.

I have been making a concerted effort to be more "in the moment" in my own life. Now, I am far from the worst when it comes to being constantly plugged in, but I am also far from the best (Hello, my name is Jenn and I am addicted to Words with Friends on my smartphone). I decided that, in attending BlogHer, I would not bring a laptop and I would strictly limit looking at my phone. I did that.

I was practically the only person to do that, though.

A very strange thing happened in the panel meetings (and this is a big reason I never sat through a whole one): there were round tables in the room, full of bloggers typing on their laptops, tablets or phones as the panelists spoke. Hardly anyone was actually looking at the speakers and people also weren't really interacting with one another.

It freaked me out.

The panelists are there to speak and connect with the audience--how can you truly relate with someone who is not looking at you? So much of communication is nonverbal.

I know that many bloggers were liveTweeting the discussions and a lot of them probably had obligations to post things later and needed to take good notes.

Still, it freaked me out.

I realize it's a conundrum--we were all there because we spend a lot of time on the internet--but that same internet felt, to me, like it prevented some of "real life" from unfolding.

Thoughts?

 

A Danger Boy Update: Week One

Danger Boy and his 100 plus pounds of belongings made it to Erie just fine. Thankfully, he was able to text me to doublecheck or confirm things that he didn't listen to me saying on Saturday, when everything I said was greeted with, "I've got it!

Danger Boy is not much of a talker; he is definitely the strong, silent type. Thus, I am only able to share the following information with you.

Me: Is everything going okay?

DB: Yes.

Me: Are you making friends?

DB: Yes.

Me: Are you having fun?

DB: Yes.

In other news, given grudgingly and placatingly, he made snow cones at Freshman move-in day for his dorm, he bought his books and he scored five goals and two assists in a scrimmage (he did elaborate on that bit of news--the coach was grinning pretty big and he thought it had to do with him). Also, he wants me to send him his Tupac poster and a large Nalgene.

Classes start on Wednesday--I wonder if he'll tell me what he's taking?!

In Which I Discuss Hangers

Two of my friends and I were walking the lake the other day when the conversation turned to hangers. I have no idea how that happened, but it did.

I shared that it has always baffled me when people refer to "hangers pointing in different directions." I knew this was some kind of code for a disorganized person, but it made no sense to me--wouldn't it take MORE work to put your hangers up on the rod curved over from the back?

They laughed at me.

"No," they explained, "it means that the clothes on the hangers are pointing in different directions."

This boggled my mind.

"Do you mean that some people hang up their shirts and dresses so they are not facing the same way--say all the fronts to the left?!"

"Yes," they said, "in fact, both of us do that."

And then I fainted and they had to carry me back to the car.

I NEVER KNEW.

Joining the Conversation

Recently I have been reading some amazing posts about racism. It was worth joining Twitter to have made the acquaintance of Mocha Momma (she's big; I just didn't know of her). My friend Aaryn Belfer is writing--passionately and thought-provokingly as always--about race from her unique perspective as a white woman who is the mother of an (incredibly adorable) black daughter.

I completely missed the BlogHer incident that precipitated a slew of posts (so I've heard, I haven't read them); it involved the Sparklecorn party and a unicorn cake. Mocha Momma explains it better than I could.

You know I can't stay out of a conversation as important as this one.

It is incredibly hard to discuss race/ethnicity when you are white. This does not, of course, mean you should not do it. Most of the difficult dialogues I have surrounding ethnicity are with students that are Mexican, since that is the population I work with most frequently. I also have difficult conversations with other teachers--many of whom firmly believe that students of color just need to "get over it."

There is no handbook for how to discuss race and ethnic issues. I can only use my instinct and empathy to guide me.

My starting point for any conversation I have--with students, teachers or friends--is to acknowledge and own my status as a person that benefits from white privilege. This white privilege is nothing I seek; rather it is conferred upon me by society by virtue of my status as a person that is a member of the power structure of this country.

I believe my acknowledgement is a powerful tool; really the tool I can employ as a white woman that has the most impact on my conversations.

Our society is NOT post-racial. Racism exists. I will never have the experience of being discriminated against by a racist system.

I am not saying that my acknowledgement of this necessarily solves anything, but I do think it makes it more likely that I can have educational and enlightening conversations with all sorts of people.

I'd love to have your thoughts--join the conversation!

 

 

 

 

More Milestones . . .

I took Social Butterfly and Peanut to get their senior yearbook portraits taken (I can't tell you how thrilled the photographer was that they were smart enough to wear strapless to make it easy to put on the drape--apparently not all girls are) and then, me being me, I had to snap a few shots of my own when we got home.

I even cajoled Danger Boy into getting in on the action (where cajoled = bribed).

This was pre-off-to-college haircut for DB. It's short, but he kept a little blonde for the girls in Pennsylvania. Sadly, I didn't have enough money on me to get the "after" photo!

Proofs came today--this is her pick. I guess once you get your senior portrait impending graduation is real!