Happy 50th!

This is my 50th post since I started my blog! I was surprised to see this, because I honestly figured I would have seventy or eighty posts by now. I started this blog sometime in August...has it really taken me three months to get to fifty posts? Wow--I'm not nearly as long-winded as I give myself credit for.

I'm not going to write about anything today. In fact, I never intended to blog today at all, but I happened to see on my dashboard that I had a total of 49 posts, and given that today is October 31st (Halloween...blech), I got it in my head that I wanted to reach the fiftieth post mark before this month ended (and I have 82 minutes to spare). Plus, this might be a good time to mention that I *might* be taking a leave of absence, and that if you don't see a new blog entry from me in the next thirty days, it is because I am in the process of torturing myself over the creation of a really crappy novel.

Costume Drill

It is such a gorgeous day! Even though it's evening, it's about 72 degrees outside and sunny. I love the in-between seasons in the desert...the weather is just perfect (when it's not windy).

I just got back from taking Moses on a walk and he did so good. He's getting better and better each time we go out, which I guess is what is supposed to happen. I'm not used to actually investing time to train a dog. It's one of those idealistic things that I always say I'm going to do, but never wind up doing. But for some reason, with Moses, I've actually been sticking with it. I think there might be two reasons why I feel more committed to the "Get this Damn Dog Trained" Project: First, his size...I have this near-panicky urge to get him under control before he outweighs me. In my mind it's becoming this race against time. Secondly, Christmas is at my house this year, and I want to present my big beautiful behaved dog to my family, because where it stands right now, he's pretty much going to pummel the kids and bull-doze poor Grandma to the ground. But at the moment I feel really excited about Moses' progress, especially on the leash. Today a pit-bull got away from his owner while we were on our walk, and Moses handled it very well. He showed a little interest, but didn't try to drag me. He kept right on walking, so he gets an "A" for citizenship for today. The pit bull started to come toward us, but changed his mind at the last second and ran down the street.

Today was entertaining. It was Halloween Dress-Up Day at my work, so I went ahead and dressed up as a cheetah...or it may have been a leopard. Some sort of spotted cat. I don't care to dress up, but the kids love it when I do, so I try to be a good sport. I'm not exactly crazy about Halloween, but I have to say that the costumes this year were pretty adorable and harmless. The girls were dressed up mostly as fairy tale characters, fairies, and lady bugs. The most popular boy costume this year was a banana...there were a lot of bananas running around (did Wal-Mart have these on sale this year or something?). It was refreshing to see students veering away from the morbid, gory costumes. I especially expected to see a ton of vampire costumes due to the popularity of "Twilight," but there were hardly any.

The most humorous part of the day occurred in the middle of 6th period when suddenly the fire alarm went off. I was immediately surprised; a reaction any teacher experiences when there is an "unscheduled" drill. So we all had to file outside and march to the outer fields, costumes and all. It was like a costume parade, but the participants were much more confused (and let's face it, happy to get out of 6th period). The poor 8th graders were supposed to be at lunch, but they were required to go out into the field as well, so they wound up having to eat their lunch during 7th period and it seriously messed up the rest of the day. We found out later that the fire alarm was pulled because of a dry ice experiment that went awry in one of the labs.  I'm sure I'll get the whole story on Monday.

After school let out, I stayed after to chaperon for the Halloween Dance. It was fun and the D.J played great music, but it wasn't as fun as the last one because I didn't have Trin and Elijah with me. When they're with me, I have an excuse to dance and get crazy. Without them, I'm actually limited to strictly chaperoning, or otherwise I'm just the weird teacher shaking it by myself...and not even well since, really, I am a terrible dancer.

Guardian Angels

I wasn't going to post today because I'm craving some nice juicy television right now (pretty sure I have a "Desperate Housewives" DVRed), but I can probably squeeze in a quickie.

Clinton (I hate to go from the word "quickie" to talking about Clint...please understand that this is just an unfortunate coincidence) wrote the sweetest blog that ping-ponged from my last entry. He doesn't normally read my blog; believe me when I say that this is very much not his thing. But I think after my little mini-melt-down on Monday night, he must have known that I was needing something from him, so he decided to read my most recent post. He responded to it on his blog, and after reading what he wrote, I decided I don't care if he ever says another damn nice thing about me, he is the most wonderful hubby in the world. But even as I write down this, I know that in about a week, maybe two, I'll be back to being a total brat.

Today I carved a pumpkin with my "angel." I'm in a mentoring program called "Guardian Angels" in which troubled youths (called "angels," ironically) are assigned to participating adults ("guardians") for a full year. The program is designed to provide an adult role model for students who come from dysfunctional backgrounds and simply don't have a support system in their homes. The guardians try to make contact with their angel once a week, and everyone in the program gets together once a month to do some kind of special activity. Today we carved pumpkins, and it was tremendously fun. This is my third year in the program, and last year I did not have a good time. My angel last year was painfully shy, and I tried all year to get her to open up, but she wouldn't. She wouldn't even crack a smile, ever, which made being with her very awkward. I never looked down on her for this, but it just made for a long year. The year before was my favorite. I was assigned one of my own students, Matt. Matt and I have such a great rapport (I use the present form "have" because he is still very much a part of my life), and I loved being his guardian angel, although I must have not done a very good job because he wound up getting busted for drug possession on campus later in the school year. I remember staying with him for hours right after it happened, talking to him about what to expect next and what he needed to do. To this day he is still a little delinquent (or shall I say "work in progress"), but he is so close to my heart--I don't think I'll ever give up on him. This year, I really like my angel. I So far she is very friendly and talkative. She is very easy to be around and we both feel really comfortable with each other.

Time to make the kids dinner (and by "make," I mean "microwave"), and then it's Desperate Housewives here I come!

Stupid Emotional Girl

Last night we had our small group, and I got emotional during the discussion. I hate that. We've been in this group for eight months now, and for the entire duration I have never been anything other than upbeat. But last night I felt frustrated with Clint, and I couldn't seem to hide it.

It all started because the question was posed, "How did you meet your spouse and what first attracted you to him/her?" I know this sounds pathetic, but Clint never affirms me in front of people, and it is a constant source of contention between us. He takes such good care of me in the privacy of our home, but for some reason, he can't seem to ever say anything nice to me or about me in the presence of family and/or friends. So when this question came up, I felt a little excited to hear what he was going to say. All the other members had shared something nice about their spouse, and I figured that Clint would feel obliged to do the same. But when his turn came around, he said that "Our story is pretty boring. Jodi and I just always knew each other in high school." He didn't even address the second part of the question at all. I inwardly felt crushed by this...I don't know why I expected something more...you'd think after eleven years I'd learn. But for some reason I did expect more, and I just felt so crappy...and a little angry too. I felt like shouting "You coward! Oh, you're more than willing to 'love' your wife, but as long as no one else is watching. Heaven forbid you violate your tough man code by coming up with ONE damn attractive thing about me."

So for the rest of our Bible Study I held it together and smiled and laughed with everyone else. But then, toward the end, the women were asked to "share some general comments about how you feel loved." I tried to keep my comments as objective as possible as I shared that I thought giving a woman verbal affirmation and uplifting her in front of others is what makes her feel loved, but obviously I was describing myself and I got teary-eyed. I didn't actually cry, but it was just enough to make things really awkward and to embarrass the hell out of me.

So now I am seriously pissed off at myself. Why can't I just discuss things like an objective intellectual without getting all damn weepy? I hate it that my small group saw me doing this, and worse, I hate it that they know now that I am not entirely satisfied with my marriage. Especially since Clint is the leader of our group. As a couple, I think we're held to a higher standard and should be "the couple to look up to," not "the couple to pray for." Ughhh. The worst part is that I feel so selfish. Clinton is a wonderful husband. He is so sweet and thoughtful, he always wants to cuddle (even though I'm about as cuddly as a porcupine), he cooks, he helps me with the cleaning without complaining, he constantly does little acts of service to make my day easier or just to make me feel special. But here I am, hung up on some shallow need to be "talked up" in front of people. It drives me nuts--why can't I just appreciate what I have? I know several single females who would kill to have someone like Clinton.

We never did go to the Halloween party at the dojo last Friday. We never made the decision not to go, but the time for the party just sort of came and went, while we sat at home watching t.v. Ironically we put all of this energy into trying to decide whether we wanted to go or not, but our own exhaustion and laziness that Friday evening pretty much made the decision for us.

I am having such a difficult time sleeping. Last night I was still staring at the ceiling at 2:00 a.m., and I started to panic because this was going to be my second "all nighter" in a row. I can function okay at work with one missed night of sleep, but I can't do two in a row and still teach the next day with any quality. It's torture to be a walking zombie but to have to be in front of 108 students throughout the course of a day. So at 2:30 I finally crawled out of bed, made some sub plans, and put in an absence for today. It felt great not going to work today, but I also feel like a lazy slug. I had Clint swing by my work to grab a stack of papers for me to grade, but as of now I haven't graded anything. At this point I don't know if I will.

Bad Exercise & Good Hearts

Everyone around me is sick. Clint has had a nasty cold for a week now, Teri and Carey cancelled out on tonight's dinner because they're sick, our brother-in-law is sick, Elijah has a cold...I feel like I'm the "last [wo]man standing." Although it was weird, because I have felt great all weekend, so I decided to take Moses for a jog this evening. But by the time I got home, I felt really awful. My lungs were burning and I couldn't stop coughing. This was odd, because the route wasn't new to me--it's right under a mile and I've jogged it several times before. But you would've thought this was my first time, the way I reacted. Now, three hours later, the burning-in-my-chest feeling is gone, but I am still coughing and my lower back aches. Isn't exercise supposed to make you feel good and energetic, not crappy and yucky?

Today was sort of boring, but also sort of pleasant. We went to church this morning, and then ate lunch at Daikoku. It's just like Maan Fu, where the chefs cook your food on a hibachi grill fixed right at your table. We aren't normally in the habit of eating Japanese cuisine (usually we just go to BK, or we may get some cheap Chinese food), but Clint had a coupon that was getting ready to expire. It was fun because the kids were with us this time, and I loved seeing their reaction to all the Chef's fanfare in presenting our food. They especially loved the onion "volcano," although Elijah dove under the table when fire started spewing out of it. I took a picture of the volcano and will have to post it later...it's pretty impressive. After lunch we came home and I graded until about five. Following this I went for the above-mentioned jog in which I just about hacked up a lung.

I am getting more excited for the NaNoWriMo competition, although I still feel about 99% sure that I won't complete my 50,000 words. I hate to be so fatalistic about it, but I just don't have the support available that I think a task like this will require. I'm not upset about this--it's just a fact. Despite my pessimism with the whole thing, I do think that NaNo is going to be a great thing for me. If I don't make the word count, at least this challenge will get some of those creative juices flowing. My novel right now is listed as "youth/young adult," but I'm pretty sure I'm going to be changing that soon. Although I plan to feature some younger characters, I really want the story to be more about the teacher (and no, she is NOT me--she's going to be much more quirky in a lovable sort of way). Several of the other characters are mapped out in my head, and I just love them. Well, some of them I dislike, but they're the type you "love to hate." I've also mapped out the setting, which was pretty easy, because I just modeled it after George Elementary School, located on the old George Air Force Base. It has that perfect, run-down, dilapidated atmosphere that I'm going for. But I have no idea how the story is going to begin, and worse, I have no idea how it's going to end. This is a major problem for me, because I don't know if I can even begin to write a story if I have no sense of direction. I'm just hoping that between now and November 1st, I get some kind of "a-ha!" moment and figure it all out.

Shannon stole my thunder by mentioning it on her blog, but I just wanted to write briefly that Kristyn and I are tentatively broaching some kind of truce. It began with her adding me to her "writing buddy" list for nanowrimo, and then she addressed my sister and I publicly on her blog in a way that really warmed me. Actually, I'm not sure what order those events occurred in, that was just the order I discovered them in. Anyway, Kristyn also stated that she has read every word of my blog, which again, warmed me in a way I can't really describe and don't really understand. Clint can't even read my blog with any kind of regularity (I think he's read three entries), so for someone (who I happened to hurt and offend, mind you) to not only take the time to read it, but to refer to it as beautifully written--that was just the most thoughtful thing she could have done. The situation between me and Kristyn has left me feeling inspired by the human capacity for maturity and forgiveness. Of course, now I have to stop making third-person references about her, because it's just weird, now that I know she's reading this (Hi Kristyn, by the way).

Insanity

I've officially lost it! I signed up for the NaNoWriMo challenge. Kristyn talked me into it, but the funny thing is she doesn't know she talked me into it. NaNoWriMo participants must attempt to write a 50,000 word novel, beginning from November 1st and ending at midnight on November 30th. I did the math and it averages to about six pages a day. I have to teach all day, grade papers on my weekends, spend time with my kids, go to kickboxing, attend small group, and do basic housecleaning at least once in awhile...how am I possibly going to squeeze in six pages a day? But on the bright side, the website acknowledges that they expect pretty lousy work. The idea is to allow yourself the freedom of "literary abandonment." With such a small time frame to work within, it allows writers to do what basically amounts to one long free-write without the burden of second-guessing themselves or aiming for perfection. I don't know if I feel excitement or dread right now. But I just have to try it, at least once. I guess the worst that can happen is that I am the one and only participant that winds up with "zero" words by November 30th.

Aces Breakfast

Three years ago me and another teacher, Naomi, decided to start doing what we call an "Aces Breakfast," where we make breakfast (eggs, pancakes, sausage, and juice) for all of our students who received an "A" on their report card for language arts. We have our Aces Breakfast three times a year: at the beginning of quarter two, quarter three, and quarter four. Last year, another seventh grade language arts teacher, Denise, loved our idea so much that she wanted to get in on it. So now there are three of us teachers sponsoring this event, and after so many times of trial and error, we have the whole thing down to a science. We can quickly and efficiently serve breakfast to about seventy students within a twenty minute window, all while being silly and having a good time.

So how on earth did today's breakfast wind up being such a disaster? First of all, parts of the eggs were burnt to a near crisp. Clint scrambled five dozen eggs last night, but what he created was far from burnt...in fact, it was quite the opposite. He added milk in them to make them fluffy and moist, and also added cheese to enhance the flavor. But our crockpot (one that I have never used before, I should add), which was on "low" last night to keep the eggs warm, decided it would be more fun to scorch the eggs instead. I didn't have time to replace five dozen eggs, so I just mixed them up as best as I could and hoped students wouldn't notice the burnt egg pieces within their breakfast, or the fact that their eggs were a strange hue of brown instead of yellow, or the fact that they smelled a little like burnt rubber.

Despite the charcoal brioche eggs, everything else this morning seemed to be running very smoothly and perfectly on schedule. Denise arrived nice and early to my classroom, got the griddles fired up, and started making pancakes. Meanwhile I set out all of our paper-ware, butter, syrup, and apple juice. Naomi began heating up the sausages, and things were looking great. Then suddenly we had an electrical short and I lost power to my room. Students were lining up at the gate, getting ready to come into the school, and here we were, three teachers in aprons, scrambling around my room, trying to figure out a way to magically know something about electricity so we can fix the problem and resume our cooking. Luckily another teacher walked passed and saw us panicking, and was able to locate my electrical panel and help us resolve the problem. But unfortunately, by the time everything was said and done, we had a gazillion students in my room waiting for food and nothing to give them (but some gourmet eggs).

By the time the bell rang for first period to start, several students were lucky to have eaten even one pancake, unlike the three or four they normally digest when we hold this function. I was shoving plates in students' hands as they ran out the door, telling them "Have your teacher call me if they have a problem with you eating in class!" Four girls stayed with me to help clean up the mess, and I still had pancakes going on the grill, so I had them randomly deliver breakfast to nearby teachers. They didn't know who they should give breakfast to, so I just told them "pick anybody." Later, I had teachers approaching me saying "Thank you for breakfast this morning!" and I just felt so amused, because of course I had no idea that I had "given" them breakfast. How nice of me--I rock. =)

Throughout the course of the day, I tried to explain to my students that the Aces Breakfast isn't usually such a disaster, and my kids seemed confused by this. They thought the whole thing was great, and one student, Thomas, declared "those were the best eggs and sausage I have ever had!" Apparently Tommy likes the taste of burnt cheese. To each his own, I suppose.