Seven Children, A Dog, and a Guitar (revised)

The night my parents sat my sister and me down in our living room and explained to us that Mommy was going to have a baby, I imagined a baby doll waiting in the garage for us. I waited patiently, and then expectantly as they explained that soon we would have a little brother or sister. Neither of us spoke, and at the time I assumed Tara was waiting with diminishing patience, as I was, for one of them to go out to the car and bring in the baby. Of course, Tara was only three at the time, and once he arrived, it took her close to a year to even realize she had a brother. It is more probable she was watching Sesame Street in her head or pretending she was a puppy. I, on the other hand, remember a distinct feeling of confusion when I realized that not only was there no doll, we wouldn’t even get the baby for months.

Talk about a letdown.

When the call came from the hospital, and my baby-sitter informed me that I had a baby brother, I congratulated God on his listening skills. I was not-so-secretly praying for a brother, not being all that impressed with the sister I already had.

While my sister and I had much in common, we differed in the details. I could never understand why Tara insisted—despite all evidence to the contrary—that she was a dog. I slowly began to appreciate that, when life hand you a lemon, well, you just gotta get on all fours and pretend that lemons were dog food.

I, too, lived in a dream world, but my dream world took place on the mountaintops of Austria. “My name is Leisl,” I would announce. “Oh look, here is my sister Louisa.”

But Tara was having none of it. “I’m not playing. I’ll only play if I can be the dog.”

“Tara, the von Trapps did not have any dogs.”

“What about ‘when the dog bites, when the bee stings, when I’m feeling bad…’” Tara sang.

“Then you simply remember your favorite things—and nobody’s favorite thing was a dog!"

“Then I’m not playing. I’m only playing if I’m the dog.”

“Unh! Why do you have to ruin everything? Just be Louisa for a little while!”

“Woof,” she said matter-of-factly before settling on the floor with her head on her paw to rest.

I sighed. My mom really did enjoy singing and playing the guitar, and I would often put on her dress clothes and mope around the house, pretending my father had given orders that under no circumstances were we to have play clothes. The lack of children in our family wasn’t really a problem, because we so obviously made up for what we lacked. It was only Tara’s insistence that she was a dog that was keeping the rest of the world from knowing it too.

“Woof,” Tara repeated stubbornly.

I stomped my foot impatiently. “The von Trapps did not have a dog; they had guitars, and fun uncles, and Nazis!”

I thought to myself, this wouldn’t be a problem if Brennan had wanted to the dog. Brennan had never seen The Sound of Music and so was resigned to the lowly role of Kurt, who had barely any lines. But Tara knew the lines and, more importantly, knew the songs. She knew exactly when to step back and let Leisl have her solos. Tara understood that Leisl was the oldest and sweetest and kindest and prettiest, and therefore the most important.

Louisa, on the other hand, was manipulative and liked to crawl into normal people’s bedrooms with whole jars of spiders in her hands. Tara was perfect for Louisa and if she couldn’t see that …

I tried again. “What if Louisa is a girl who thinks she’s a dog?”

Tara chewed on that. “Can I bark whenever I want?”

“I guess.”

“Can I have a solo?”

“What do you want to sing?”

“I don’t want to sing, I want to bark.”

It became clear that I was going to have to say so long, farewell, auf weiderhesen, good-bye to Leisl and her siblings. No one wants to play with me, I would moan to myself. I may as well be an orphan.

It’s a hard knock life.

Death Elevator

For as long as I can remember, I knew I wanted to go to college at the University of Iowa. When I was accepted, I eagerly signed up for freshmen orientation during the month of July.

My tour guide at orientation was a tall, wiry college student with frizzy brown hair. She had obviously spent many hours in the sun, but was more of a weathered brown than bronzed gold. Two pencils stuck out of her head, keeping her hair in a loose bun.

With a large group of other incoming freshmen, I stood outside the Iowa Memorial Union and listened as our tour guide pointed vaguely in the direction of Market Street.

“If you go up Market Street back to the dorms on the east side,” she said, “be careful of the hill. In the winter time, I’ve personally seen more than one person fall down the hill.” She said this with the significance one might give to witnessing a drive-by shooting.

I remember the comment because I’d already climbed up and down the hill several times that day. If I were a mountaineer or even a hiker, I probably would have enjoyed it. As it was, I was more of an indoor girl—shopping and reading were my two main hobbies. The temperature was hovering around 95 with 99% humidity, and I shrieked each time I saw my increasingly frizzy hair in the reflection of buildings as we passed by. I made a mental note to avoid that hill.

The following August, once I’d moved into Burge Hall, I quickly realized that to get to the English-Philosophy Building from the east-side dorms, you must go up and down that hill. As an English major, it was unavoidable.

The first week of classes, my roommate and I would arrive at our dorm at the same time, both huffing and puffing, “I … hate … (gasp) that (sputter) hill!”

After about one week, however, my body quickly adjusted to climbing up and down it several times a day. The trick was to bend over at the waist in a 90 degree angle to keep your equilibrium so you didn’t topple over backwards. Going down the hill was trickier because inertia and gravity tended to make your feet pound the pavement faster than you really wanted to go, and before you knew it, you were at the bottom of the hill barreling into the intersection with no way to stop. The hill became an adventure.

Around December, with the first snowstorm, that adventure became a little more life-threatening. After one night of sleet and decreasing temperatures, the ground was covered by a thin layer of ice.

My best friend Natalie and I were tromping our way to class one early Wednesday morning. We approached the top of the hill chatting and laughing about daily events, what happened the day before on General Hospital, where to hang the posters we had stolen from the video rental store the week before, and how the girl who lived next to me really needed to stop playing Neil Diamond’s “Sweet Caroline”—I don’t care if her name was Caroline, enough was enough.

When we got the corner of Clinton and Market, all conversation ceased. Our steps became tentative and we both silently wondered how we were going to get down this hill without killing ourselves.

There was a small group of people gathered next to the parking ramp. “Um …” one girl said. “How do we get down?” We stared down the sidewalk to the bottom where the street lay waiting.

Next to us, a car drove by slowing, brake lights lit up. As the driver began going down the street, the tires locked, and the car began plummeting to the bottom of the hill. The brake lights flashed on and off, on and off, as the driver began pumping his brakes to gain some traction. We all watched in silence. Then the driver applied his horn as a warning as the car slid half a block and into the middle of the intersection. No other cars were around, and the driver straightened his wheel, applied some gas, and took off.

The small crowd at the top of the hill all released the breath we’d been holding in anticipation of an accident and turned back to the business at hand. “Well,” the first girl said, “here goes nothing.” She and her friend both began sliding down the hill. Encouraged by their progress, a handful of others followed.

Natalie and I looked at each other. I distinctly remember Nat shrugging at me and we both set off. Within two steps, we were holding tightly onto one another’s hand (if I go down, I’m taking you with me) and no longer picking our feet up, choosing instead to just hold as still as possible and hope gravity would deposit us safely.

All was going smoothly until someone called, “Erica!” At the sound of my name, I tried turning around to see who was calling me, upsetting Nat’s equilibrium in the process. Down she went!

She shrieked, and in the next second, down I went, shrieking all the way after her. She was still clinging onto my hand, and, like a game of Red Rover gone bad, we slid down the hill, Nat her on her back and me on my side, both of us shrieking the whole way.

It wasn’t long before we slammed into another girl who had been carefully edging her way the street. Like a chain reaction, down she went, sliding after us. It wasn’t long before she hit a boy—but he was ready. Observing our ascent, he had grabbed a tree on the side of the road and was holding on for dear life. His expression of utter disbelief as we slid by him is engrained in my memory until the day I die.

After about twenty feet of sliding, Natalie managed to get a grip on the ground beneath her and pulled us both to a stop. We were both nearly catatonic in the middle of the sidewalk on our backs, panting, rather like the little brother in A Christmas Story. I had an image of some bully jumping into the frame while we lay paralyzed, but was distracted when Nat seemed to find her voice.

“I … don’t … believe that just happened,” she finally croaked.

I had nothing to add to the conversation. Her remark pretty much summed up the situation.

After that experience, we decided we needed a new route to get to and from the EPB. The following day, we discovered behind our dorm, sitting parallel with the hill was a parking ramp. We could leave Burge by a back entrance, walk about 10 yards, and enter the parking ramp at street level. Then we could either walk down three flights of stairs or ride the elevator down three floors, and exit the parking ramp at street level, thereby omitting the hill completely.

It was brilliant, and we weren’t the only students who had discovered this.

The first time we tried this, our experience was less than what we’d hoped. We’d eliminated the hill, but traded it for a foul-smelling elevator with suspicious liquid puddles on the floor and fishy smudges smeared over the windows and buttons.

The alternative, however, was falling on your ass in front of dozens of students and flailing downwards half a block, so we made the best of it and quickly adapted, even forgetting what the conditions were like in the ’vator.

We were reminded again, when our friend Sara rode on it once with us.

“What the hell is that smell?” Sara shrieked when we entered.

“Oh, we’re pretty sure that’s the smell of death,” Natalie said cheerfully.

“Watch out for the plasma on the floor,” I added helpfully pointing at the puddle.

“The plasma?” Sara looked horrified.

“Well, we don’t know for sure that it’s plasma,” Natalie said hurriedly, to ease her mind.

“It just seems like the most logical conclusion, since we’re pretty sure someone had to have died in this elevator to make it smell like this.”

Sara shook her head and stuck out her hand to push the ground level button. “Wait!” Nat and I shouted in unison and she snatched her hand back in fright.

“Don’t ever,” Natalie said sternly, “ever touch anything in this elevator.”

“Do you want to get a herpe?” I cried. “Look around!! Does this place look sanitary?”

All three of us scrutinized the dirt-smudged windows, crumpled wrappers, and what looked like a mass of leaves leftover from autumn in the corner.

Finally, Sara said, “No. This place looks like where garbage comes to die.” She looked at me. “You’re wearing gloves. You push the button.”

I looked horrified. “I’m not ruining my gloves by touching that button. Forget it. Move out of the way.”

She moved and I deftly kicked the button with my boot. The elevator chugged to life and we slowly began to ascend. “I see that Taebo is really working out for you,” she said wryly.

“Your backpack is touching the wall,” Nat told her matter-of-factly. “You’ve definitely caught the plague now.”

Sara looked around the conditions surrounding her and then turned to face us. “Who’s idea was this? I hate you both. I’ll die before I ride this death elevator again.” The doors dinged open and she stomped out, narrowly missing a girl and her boyfriend waiting to get on.

Nat murmured to me under her breath, “Well, she’ll probably die anyway. Do you see that clump of … whatever it is on her arm? That will definitely get her, if her infected backpack doesn’t first.”

“This death elevator is nature’s answer to medical breakthroughs. Survival of the fittest,” I replied as I followed her out and we struggled to catch up with Sara.

From behind me, as the doors began to close, I could hear the boyfriend say to his girlfriend, “Gross! Don’t touch anything in here.” From the other direction, off in the distance, I could hear the descending shriek of another sacrifice to the hill.

Oh, the Places You'll Go

This is actually a reworking of a piece I originally posted in the summer of 2003.

Oh, the Places You’ll Go…

“Some books are meant to be tasted, others to be swallowed, and some to be chewed and digested.”
--Francis Bacon

"Until I feared I would lose it, I never loved to read. One does not love breathing."
--Scout Finch, To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee

I am a book junkie. Just as I have to breathe, I have to read. My security blanket is not warm and fuzzy; it is square with rough edges and a shiny hard cover, but I sleep with it just the same. I rarely use my library card, preferring instead to hoard my money and spend my hard-earned cash on books, so after I am finished reading, I can keep them. One does not throw away their childhood stuffed animals; I cannot part with my books. Is there anything more delicious than picking up a brand new book, running your fingertips lovingly over the spine, feeling the coarse edges of the pages as you flip through them, and finally—after much internal fanfare—opening the front cover and hearing the satisfying split of the binding. The split that marks the initiation of the brand-new to the cherished. The split that allows the book to say to the world: Not only was I anticipated, paid for with hard-earned currency, and read, I was treasured.

Perhaps the only thing more delicious than a brand-new book is an old tattered, worn-out book. These are the books that show I don’t just see words on a page or even just pictures in my mind. I see a time in space and a space in time. I know where I was and what was happening in my life during the reading of these books. Each tattered copy marks not just a novel finished, but a landmark on my mind or—if I’m really lucky—in my life.

At the sight of my tattered copy of Little House on the Prairie, I recall curling up in a ball underneath piles of blankets while my dad read to my sister and me. I was so young that I didn’t understand a lot of the story, but I remember how the edge of the mattress would cut into my neck. I was unable to move—paralyzed with pleasure at the images the words were conjuring.

The scent of lilacs today reminds me of a warm spring at the end of eighth grade. I sat in our backyard as flowers bloomed and I sobbed over the ending to Sharon Creech’s poignant Walk Two Moons.

Whenever I see a Hemingway book today, I remember one Saturday night in my sophomore year in college. My roommate and I were taking a novels class, and instead of dressing up to go out with our friends, we curled up (she on our depressed-looking futon, and I on my lofted bed) with our copies of In Our Time. Every few pages we would pause to wait for the other to catch up or exclaim over what was happening. All of the stories were better because they were shared.

I was not allowed to watch television while I was growing up (a gift I will never be able to fully thank my mother for, despite the hours I spend in front of the TV now). From an early age I watched pictures in my head instead of on the screen. The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe is book that took me to a new time and space. I was not prepared for Narnia, the lion, the witch, or most especially, that wardrobe. The idea that one could escape into a different world from such an ordinary, mundane thing as a closet! Although the story has dissipated somewhat in my mind, the memories of wonder, awe, and plain and simple pleasure have evolved from feelings to moments of time and space inside me. For me, Narnia—or Alice’s Wonderland—or that Wrinkle in Time—is not found through a door in my closet, but inside a 6x8-inch square sitting on my bookshelf.

Miss Rixie's 2005-2006 School Year Goals: a Reflection

Please refer to the August 2005 blog to review the goals:

1. I will leave no child left behind ... except those who blatantly refuse to keep up by not doing their homework, yeah, they're so getting left behind. It's like those kids who won't get back in the car at the rest stop when Dad stops to go to the bathroom, and then he has to drive away to teach Kid a lesson so that it won't happen again. Well, I'll be the one teaching those idiots a lesson: You snooze, you lose ... but beyond that, I will leave no child left behind. Unless they really deserve it. Obviously. Okay, will leave a minimal amount of children behind.
Reflection: Okay, several children were left behind, mainly because they are too lazy to do their goddamn homework. Well, they weren't so much left behind as advised, then warned, and finally threatened that if they weren't waiting at the bus stop, not only was I leaving without them, I wasn't looking back. One kid's MOTHER actually said to me in May, "Why should he bother doing any more work because we're 95% sure he's going to flunk fourth quarter." In the words of Justin Timberlake, um, cry me a river. Hello, he still could have passed the SEMESTER. But he didn't do any work, so he didn't pass. And he wasn't the only one.


2. Will do a minimal amount of study guides and instead try to find a more engaging way to teach students.
Reflection: This was a fairly successful goal. Many reading strategies were done, but I tried to pick fun ones and didn't hear many complaints.

3. Will not allow Scary-Mary from next door to torment me by blazing in the door in all her glory to yell at students to keep noise down and glaring at me from behind her glasses only to mock-apologize the next hour. Will simply explain that I, unlike her, do not choose to teach by making my students keep their noses in their books five days a week without ever discussing what they're reading or doing activities to keep them engaged.
Reflection: Amazingly, Scary-Mary did not blaze in the door in all her glory even one single time this year. She did send a student in once, but it was minor. And, of course, now I'm moving rooms, so her reign of terror has come to an end. For me, anyway.

4. Will write a kickin' choral reading script for speech season beginning in November/December. My choral reading kids will not be subjected to Scary-Mary's "I am a better speech coach" attitude because they will be too caught up in what an awesome job they are doing putting it together.
Reflection: We did "How to Eat Like a Child" by Delia Ephron. And we kicked it!! I had a great group of kids and they had a great time!!

5. Make choral reading more of a student-led event. Instead of having me do everything (write script, figure out poses, etc.) will encourage the kids to figure out how they want to stand, what they want to do, how they will be grouped, etc. Yeah!!
Reflection: Didn't do any of the blocking by myself. At one point, when we were trying to set up a scene that looked like a classroom, I even said, "Help me!! I'm not sure what to do and I need your input!" and one of the kids came up with the inspired idea of having two students sit at the back of the "classroom" wearing Dunce caps. Brilliant!

6. Will not allow self to feel intimidated by scary/psycho members of staff such as scary gym teacher who looks me up and down and could be my grandfather (well, a really young grandfather anyway) and Bitchy-Brenda and Bragger Barb and, obviously, Scary-Mary. Will introduce self to new student teacher since I know how it feels to be a young woman on staff in a building full of middle-aged men who haven't been outside small town in last two decades.
Reflection: Wow!! Was just realizing at the end of the year, around April, or so, that I'm starting to know and feel comfortable--amazingly, like colleagues--with most members of the staff.

7. Be tougher when grading--make my students have to work for it. But also motivate them by doing kicking activities that stretch their critical thinking and application skills.
Reflection: Feel pretty good about this. Want to keep doing it. It's tough to remember in today's grade inflation world, that average means a C--not a B+ as most teachers seem inclined to give.

8. Will concentrate on reading skills and improving reading abilities in classroom by doing research, practicing different reading strategies with students, and generally, becoming Queen of the Reading Pool of Knowledge.
Reflection: Did lots of reading strategies that seemed to work, and built a reputation for myself. So much so that I am teaching a remedial readings strategy class next year. While I'm not the only one, I am the one my boss chose to have go with him while we were scoping out different programs, and I am the one that ultimately chose the program and designed the curriculum.

9. Will not allow self to get roped into doing things for other teachers such as stage or technical manager or director, etc. Will be strong and stick to my guns. Will be self-confident and self-assured. Mean what I say and support what I mean.
Reflection: Well, I got rid of the title "Speech Contest Manager" and refused to take on stage manager again. This may be the thing I am most proud of. Look at my little backbone growing!!

10. Will kick Iowa Standards and Benchmarks of Teaching in the ass, rock my Individual Career Development Plan into orbit, and make my Reading Strategies rule all. As Esme said, I will kick pedagogical ass.
Reflection: My portfolio of Iowa Standards and Benchmarks ruled all, but I still feel like I could use some improvement here. I hope that the reading class next year will actually improve reading scores. That is my number one goal as a teacher, and the reason I do everything I do.

In Reponse to...

In response to my sister's post entitled "The Day I Became My Sister ... or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Montage."

I long ago gave up the General Hospital video montages and have moved on to Jim and Pam from The Office. There are some pretty rocking video montages of Jim and Pam entitled things like "Just Once" played to some pretty rockin songs, like ones by Journey and Jessica Simpson. The cheese quotient is high, the longing looks are frequent. What's not to love?

P.S. There is a two hour The Office marathon tonight on NBC. Be there or be square.

The Romance Collection: Jane Eyre

I recently spent $80 on a 14-DVD set collection of A&E/BBC miniseries (it was totally worth every penny and I would have paid more for it). The DVDs included:

Pride & Prejudice (the single greatest miniseries ever created with the possible exception of Anne of Green Gables)
Victoria & Albert (which I first saw as a sophomore in college when it first came out)
Ivanhoe
Emma
The Scarlet Pimpernel
Lorna Doone
Tom Jones
Jane Eyre


Here comes the fourth review: Jane Eyre
I wasn't entirely sure how I would feel about this miniseries. I've seen other versions and it's always hard to be objective when you have something else to compare it to. This version of Jane Eyre, however, was delightful. Ciaran Hinds as Mr. Rochester was deliciously deranged and almost insanely passionate--everything a true Mr. Rochester should be. Samantha Morton did a lovely job repressing her emotions while still allowing enough of them to show that the audience felt what she felt every step of the way. Gemma Jones was also in the miniseries as it had been at least two weeks since I watched a British movie that she wasn't in and she was overdue.

My one complaint is that the relationship between Mr. Rochester and Jane could use a little more build up before it's obvious that the two of them are in love. Mr. Rochester meets Jane, she wows him with her spirit, and the next thing you know, he's sharing the most important--well, second most important--part of his past with her, with only one line about them taking many walks together to explain. Ten minutes past that, however, it's easy to forget their budding relationship was rushed.

My favorite parts included Mr. Rochester turning into a giant baby throwing a temper tantrum. You'll have to watch to see what I mean, but it's thoroughly delightful. And the ending's not bad either.

Perfect Society

The date: Thursday, 27 April 2006
The time: 11:15 a.m. Fourth hour English 9 class
The activity: Prereading questions over Lois Lowry’s The Giver
The people: A group of 4 15-year-old boys … and one English teacher nearby eavesdropping

Okay, question #1. Have you ever read another book by Lois Lowry. If so, what was it about?

Yeah, we read that one in sixth grade.

Yeah, what was that called?

Something about dogs and Denmark. And a picnic basket. Oh yeah, and the Holocaust.

Wait, was it that one about the Holocaust?

Oh yeah—it was.

You can’t remember it was about the Holocaust, but you remember there were dogs and a freaking picnic basket in the story?

Attention to detail, my friend.

Moving on. Let’s answer question two. You guys, what was the story about?

People died.

People cried.

You guys are doing it wrong. You’re supposed to put what you thought about the book, not what it was about. So put … [in a monotone voice] it was good.

Yeah, it was good, it was … extravagant.

It was inspirational.

Put stars around “inspirational”.

Yeah, so she knows it’s good.

Okay, we have it was good, extravagant, and inspirational with stars. Next question: what would it take to make a perfect society?

Bunnies!! Lots of bunnies.

Penguins can fly.

Air-powered cars.

Lots of water.

With floodgates. [Defending his choice] What? We don’t want to die from the rain.

No guns. Wait, let’s have guns! … BUBBLE guns.

Law #1: Everyone must have a bubble gun on them at all times.

Lots of machines that do our work.

Robots!

Willy Wonka exists.

There’s sand everywhere!! We live on a beach.

Everyone’s rich!

(scoffing) That wouldn’t work—everyone can’t be rich!

Oh, Willy Wonka can exist but everyone can’t be rich?!?

Okay, okay, here’s what we should do: Let’s take off the beach thing. That wouldn’t work. We’d all have to drive SVUs for that to work.

Good point.

So cross off the beach thing and just leave everyone is rich. If anyone argues the point with us, we’ll just say we meant everyone’s rich with …

Love! Everyone’s rich with love.

Except us. We’re rich with money.

Just us?

Yeah. And that’s how we know it’s a perfect society. Because *we’re* the happy ones. We have money and lots of pet bunnies. What could be better?

Another Day, Another Blogger ... named Rixie

So I was in the process of googling "rixie" to try to find the etymology of the name, and came across another blog about another Rixie. I began reading it and was horrified to discover that this Rixie was a Republican, who not only was extremely conservative, but also condemning Democrats for continuing to vote Ted Kennedy into office. She went on to say that the red Southern states were often criticized as being "clueless" or "uneducated." Her question was if the red Southern states (of which she, apparently, is a part of) are so "clueless" and "uneducated", why is it the educated and with-it (my words, not hers) blue Northern states that keep electing Ted Kennedy?

Her point, mind you, as far as I could tell, was that despite being seen as "uneducated" and "clueless" (her words, not mine), the red Southern states were actually the smarter and "with-it" states. And while I'm sure she had other points beyond that first paragraph, I did not still stick around long enough to find out what it was. (Well, I'll admit, I skimmed and read a part where she defended Rush Limbaugh's actions by saying what he did was not nearly as bad as what some Democrats had done, at which point I closed out the window completely. Without getting too political, anyone who defends Rush L. is obviously uneducated and clueless.) The point is, however, I did not stick around any longer, because while she was trying to prove that they were not "uneducated" and "clueless", she managed to spell the following words wrong: prescription, alibi (she spelled it "aliby"), and allowed (she spelled it aloud).

And that, class, is why we study homonyms. And irony.

Class dismissed.

The Death of PurplePuppy

My sister made me a little PurplePuppy out of origami. I carried it around in my laptop so I would always have something purple and pretty to look at for inspiration. And now Darcy has eaten PurplePuppy. Well, not eaten actually. Chewed. She likes to chew, not swallow. So she chewed PurplePuppy. And now the inspiration appears to be gone.

So concludes this entry. Good-bye PurplePuppy.

Last night

10:00 Think to myself: I'll just stay up for another hour or so. I'm not tired at all!!

10:30 I'll get into bed and watch Arrested Development. Or maybe be a rebel and watch two.

11:00 Open book. Can't find place. Read three pages. Seems vaguely familiar.

11:03 Realize already read those three pages last night. Nothing more annoying than when you want to read and can't remember where you were, and read three pages and realize you already read it.

11:11 I'll watch more Arrested Development and knit. Yes, that's right: KNIT. I'm making a trendy, fashionable scarf. It's currently two inches long. Go me!!

11:37 Consider turning off the TV and going to bed. Have school tomorrow. Should be well-rested.

12:01 Or whatever.

12:15 Have now watched entire disc. Will either have to get out of bed to switch to the next disc or turn Arrested Development off.

12:16 Turn TV off. Still not feeling tired, so decide to read.

12:20 Finally find correct spot in book. Tell self will only read for 20 minutes.

1:01 Look at clock. Marvel at how time flies when you've got to get up in six hours and don't want to go to sleep.

1:02 Turn out light.

1:03 Yawn.

1:04 Try to play the ABC game with myself to get mind to settle down. Topic: Characters on television shows I watch.
A is for Ana Lucia
B is for Barbara Walters (she counts as a character, right? Surely that can't really be her personality!
C is for ...

1:05 Am stuck. And bored.

1:06 Abandon game.

1:07 Wonder if anyone has actually ever counted sheep.

1:08 Get up and turn heat down.

1:09 Decide while I'm up, might as well pick out clothes to wear for tomorrow.

1:32 Decide on brown cropped pants and short sleeved T-shirt if it is going to be nice; black pants, black boots, and sweater if it's going to be like I think it will be tomorrow

1:33 Check weather. Supposed to be 56 degrees and rainy. Reluctantly hang the cropped pants and short sleeved shirt back in the closet, knowing full well will pull them out again and wear them in the morning regardless of the weather.

1:36 Go back to bed.

1:38 Get out of bed to drink glass of water.

1:44 Decide must seriously concentrate on getting to sleep.

1:57 Have to pee. Bad. Damn water.

1:59 Do the math: if I fall asleep now, I can still get five hours of sleep.

2:18 Have to pee. Again. Damn water.

2:21 Figure as long as I'm up ...

2:22 Do some online research. Check all my favorite sites: tvguide.com, stephen colbert's site, jennifer crusie's site, meg cabot's site, imdb.com, sister's blog, read an article by Tom Hanks about his make-up artist, read an article about the Daytime Emmy results, veronica mars site, etc.

3:02 Have checked all the sites, and oddly, none have been updated since I last checked (about five hours previous)

3:03 Check own blog to see if it was magically updated by someone other than me.

3:04 Sadly, no.

3:05 Ponder what else I can research.

3:26 End up reading telepathic stories about identical twins. Freaky!!

3:27 Drink a mug of warm milk.

3:32 Begin to feel sleepy.

3:33 Go back to bed. If I fall asleep now, I can get three and a half hours of sleep.

3:45 If I fall asleep now, I can still get three hours of sleep.

3:54 If I fall asleep now, I can ...

still get three hours of sleep. Open eyes to look at clock. 6:54. DAMMIT!!!

Adventures of a First Year Teacher

Just discovered a forgotten journal I was keeping for the first few days of teaching last year. Here are selections from my entry beginning with the second day of my first year of teaching.

The Good:
Today I had my first crackdown, discipline-wise, and I handled it tremendously well, if I do say so myself. I handed out this assignment to the kids and told them not to worry about finishing it tonight; it wasn’t homework, that we’d finish it in class tomorrow, but that they should use their time today wisely. The kid—who we’ll call Andrew because that is his name—packed up early. I told him to sit back down and finish working. He said he’d do it tonight. I said, well then why am I giving you time tomorrow? He said nothing. I said sit down and finish it. We had a stare down. The thing is, he was standing up first and was much taller than I was, but as I stared him down, he gradually sank into the chair until I was taller (never underestimate the importance of body language, as Ursula would tell me, if I were a mermaid named Ariel). But even though he did that, I could tell he wasn’t going to back down. So I stared at him for a few more seconds and then said, “Okay, it’s homework. For everyone.” He immediately said, “No, I’ll do it. Look I’m getting it out.” But I completely ignored him and turned around to a bunch of girls digging through my books and said, “Did you hear that girls? The assignment’s homework. If anyone doesn’t have it done tomorrow at the beginning of class, it’s late.” And since I have a really strict late policy, I think it will all be finished. I heard one of the kid’s say, “Way to go, Andrew,” but I didn’t even look at him for the next minute or so until the bell rang. No skin off my back. It was great!! I really don’t think I’ll have another problem like that one with him again. Knock on wood…

It’s so weird to have my own classroom. To know I can do anything type of curriculum I want. I don’t have to answer to anyone (am having a bit of a problem remembering I don’t have to do all of the previous teacher's curriculum, especially all the stuff with careers). I’m the teacher. I can do whatever I want. THERE’S SO MUCH FREEDOM!!! I LOVE IT!!!

Good day all around. Knew everybody’s name as they walked out of my classroom. Hopefully at least half of them will carry over. WOB came in during sixth hour when the kids had their dictionaries open and were working-slash-quizzing me over their names. Very good moment for him to observe meJ Am excited to get back there tomorrow morning and get to work again.

The Bad:
I’m having lots of fun, but am physically exhausted at the end of every day. I fall into bed and am asleep in minutes. Plus, I have no life and I’m broke. I have $1.90 in my checking account and don’t get paid for eight more days. Hmm.

The Inbetween:
Me, today in school sixth period: In the scene of Romeo & Juliet you read last night as homework, can anyone tell me what the nurse and Lady Capulet are talking about.

[Several hands go up]

Me: Emily?

Emily: They’re reminiscing about Juliet’s childhood

Me: Exactly! Nice work. What else? Andrew?

Andrew: Is there a war going on in Iraq?

Me:

Amanda: Andrew! Shut up!!

That kid is unlike any other student I’ve ever met in my life. Despite his inability to focus on ANYTHING at hand, I do really like him. He’s fun…although I wish he’d quit flirting with me. It’s especially embarrassing when kids from other classes comment on it.

Ha! How hilarious!! I'm happy to say that the flirting did stop once I no longer had him in class. I am currently laughing to myself about how excited I was to get back to work the next day. I am now counting down the days until summer vacation (for the record, it's 21--four full weeks of classes plus one day for the teachers).

Corsage Catastrophe

So today is the day of my brother's prom and I decide to go with my mom to pick up the corsage for his date. We're running behind after spending an hour at the library looking for books on endangered species for my mother's sixth graders to research and we still need to go to Wal-Mart to get my dad some garden seed plant thing so he won't accuse us of blowing him off and to get me insulin so I won't die. I tell my mom I'll run in to Hy-Vee and pick up the corsage to save us the time of parking, etc. so we can get a move on and brother won't be late.

Only I go into Hy-Vee and tell them my name and there's no flower. They look in the refridgerator where they keep all their flowers and there's nothing back there. "It's lime green," I say helpfully, in case they're retarded and can't read their writing. "There are three lime green sweetheart roses with white foliage." They look blankly around. Clearly, it's not there.

We check out the sheet with the order, and in the column that reads "Done" there is no checkmark. The fucking flower never got made and he has to leave in forty minutes to pick his date up on time.

"No problem," the older woman with stupid blonde hair in a stupid cut says. "I'll do yours next." Then, as I stand there and watch, another woman comes up to the counter. She's clearly A Mom as she's got at least two decades on me, maybe more. Hers isn't made either. I throw her a sympathetic look until I hear Stupid Blonde say, "No problem. I'll do yours next." I immediately take back my sympathetic look as I worry about my place in line. Then Stupid Blonde says, "Michelle, refund this woman her money." I look to see who she's talking about and it's The Mom--NOT ME. Stupid Blonde has just become Stupid Blonde Bitch and I now hate her.

I wait patiently for five minutes while they tell The Mom it will be ten minutes for her order and probably twenty for mine. Then I run to the parking lot and explain the situation to my mother. We agree she will go to Wal-Mart and pretend to be me picking up my insulin and come back and pick me up.

Then I call Brother. He's rather apologetic while I seethingly explain the situation through clenched teeth--"I'm experiencing agism RIGHT HERE--discrimination right in the middle of the florist section of the local Hy-Vee! If I were a MAN--"

"That doesn't fit in with the ageism theory."

"Oh. Right. Thanks. If I were a MIDDLE-AGED MOTHER, this would NEVER happen."

He is appropriately sympathetic because he's grateful: 1) I'm picking up his corsage and it has now been 25 minutes since I walked in, and 2) he's driving my car to pick up his date.

We hang up and I watch the clock. Thirty minutes tick by and I call my mom and tell her to take her time--the corsage was supposed to be ready ten minutes ago and she's busy making an orange corsage and sticking baby's breath into some bouquet at the same time while I stand trying to be tall enough to glare at her over the top of the discount roses.

I decide to run and get pop for work as I'm pretty sure that my boss has been stealing mine again. Then I remember that I'm out of cereal and if I don't have any of that, I will definitely starve. All of my pants have been a little tight lately, so that may not be a bad thing, but I buy the cereal anyway. Then I go stand in front of the florist again.

There are now three employees working on one bouquet of flowers, one working at the cash register, and zero working on my corsage. I pretend my phone rings and say loudly into, "Well, I don't know what to tell you. I'm still at Hy-Vee and they haven't even STARTED on your corsage yet. You'll just have to call Cathy and tell her you'll be late for your PROM." I glare some more at Stupid Blonde Bitch, who has the decency to drop the carnation she'd been busy shoving into a vase and pick up some white sweetheart roses. "I'll call you when I leave," I say, continuing my fake conversation into the cell phone, "if I ever DO leave."

I see Stupid Blonde Bitch whispering to the woman named Michelle who, I notice on her name tag, has worked here eight years and yet can't run a fucking cash register, or really do ANYTHING except stand around apologizing to people for not having their orders finished.

Michelle calls me over and refunds my money (really my mother's money, $27, thank you very much) and when I go back to standing in front of Stupid Blonde Bitch, she says, "I apologize for the wait. I don't know what happened; everything got all messed up." I think in my head, don't EVEN try to be friends with me now, Bitch!

The thing is, I worked in a grocery store for four years and I know how customers blame you for things that are not your fault. It was clearly NOT her fault that mine wasn't made--the night staff had prepared next weekend's corsages instead of this weekend's corsages--but it IS her fault that she ignored me, made someone else's corsage in front of my face even when I was clearly the first customer in line, refunded that woman's money but NOT mine until she'd made me wait 40 more minutes, and worked on other people's orders instead of mine while ignoring me some more. I was beyond the point of pretending to be courteous.

So I say, "I just wish I'd known when she said it would take 20 minutes, she really meant an hour." Then I stomp away and pull out my cell phone to check in with my mother again.

Ten minutes later, she FINALLY finishes the corsage (seriously, why do they have four people working back there when only one of them can actually do anything???) and begins working on the boutinierre.

"Wait a minute," I say, "we didn't order a boutinierre."

She ignores me (shocking!) and shows me a picture of a purple caterlilly. "We don't have these in stock," she says.

I stare at her blankly, then realizes she expects an answer. "Oh. Well, we didn't order that, so it's okay."

She and Michelle look at my order form. Then they look back at the picture. "But we don't have that," Stupid Blonde Bitch repeats.

"Well," I repeat, "we didn't order that, so it's okay. We ordered a lime green wrist corsage with three sweetheart roses, baby breath, and white leaves."

"But this is a purple caterlilly," she tells me.

I think, don't care! but answer, "Not mine."

Finally, they realize that they mixed up the order (ya think? I think) and continue making the boutinierre despite my repeated, "We only ordered a corsage!"s. They hand over the corsage and boutinierres and I glance at the clock as I leave. I have spent a full sixty minutes waiting for a stupid corsage that was supposed to have been done six hours ago.

As I'm leaving, Stupid Blonde Bitch smiles and says gaily, "Thank you. Come again!" and I want her dead.

Happy birthday ... to me.

Yesterday was my birthday. I turned 24.

It's incredible to me. Even as I look at the number, I can't believe it. When my students asked me how old I was and I replied, "Twenty-four," some of the girls responded, "I didn't know you were that young," which prompted the boys to joke, "Any day now you'll be over the hill." I replied, "I know! It's getting to the point where I can say, 'Twenty years ago...' and actually remember what happened!"

Which got me thinking.

I had a lovely birthday yesterday. The weather was beautiful and since it's Easter weekend, I have several days off from school now. I got loads of wonderful presents from my fam, including a new DVD/VCR combo and several books and movies I'd been coveting. My mim and I went grocery shopping for Easter dinner on Sunday and it was nice to spend time with her, I'm currently rereading one of my all-time favorite books (Jennifer Crusie's Welcome to Temptation) which is one of those books that makes me feel happy just looking at it, and my dog was behaving herself for a change. All in all, it was perfect.

And even so, when I went to bed, I turned out my light earlier than I usually would so I could float in the darkness and let my age and memories and feelings wash over me. I had a perfectly lovely day, and although it's not as traumatic as my last birthday was, I felt awash with feelings of nostalgia and change, all swirled into one indefinable emotion. I like to be able to identify my emotions, so it's particularly puzzling when I'm unable to. I guess it's just as my mother told me last year, "Birthdays are emotional." What I'm discovering more and more is that--they are.

They signify age and mortality, and yet, inevitably, I reflect back on previous years and feel youthful as well. They signify achievement--look at all I've done--and unconquered dreams--here's what I still want to do. They make me reflective and dreamy and hopeful and inspired and, well, emotional. And even though I'm one big ball of confusion, I still can't help but think: ooh, I can't wait until next April 14th!

It's reassuring that as I approach mid-twenties, part of me set up camp along time ago in the single digits.

Discussions in Class

Overheard conversations while watching the movie Cannery Row with 11 senior boys suffering from senioritis.

After seeing Nick Nolte, complete with mustache, Jacob (complete with a mustache himself) shouts out: "Hey! That's me!" The screen flashes to an ugly looking octupus. Jacob cries: "And that's Rhett!" The screen flashes to a scantily clad woman: "And that's Lucas. Wow! Look at the legs on Luke!"

After Nick Nolte swears, the class unanimously gasps in mock shock.
Me: "Do we need to take out our mature caps and secure them tightly to our heads."
(Various students mumbling to each other): "Our what?"... "I've lost mine"... "Lost it? You never had it!" ... "What the hell's a mature cap? Is that like a tampon?"

Telepathic Conversation

Conversation between my sister and me about Pride & Prejudice

Me: Do you think Jane Austen--

Sister: I know! I think about that all the time.

Me: I don't think she did.

Sister: Me either. But it's still--

Me: I KNOW!! It totally is.

[Pause.]

Sister: Totally.

The Life of a Teacher

"Don’t be mad, Miss A., but I lost my essay.
I didn’t know they were due today."

But today’s the day I’m figuring your grade,
So… be afraid. Be very afraid.

By mid-morning, my classroom’s in disarray;
Papers and trash every which way,

The mountains of papers piling up on my desk
Have moved beyond frightening and into grotesque.

Gazing around, I can’t hide my dismay,
Lessons and textbooks and backpacks, oh my!

All these things my job does feature,
Welcome to the life of a teacher!

A Day in the Life of Darcy the Puggle

6:45 Wake up. Wait patiently for Rixie to let me out of crate.

6:46 Begin wagging tail ferociously so it hits against the side of crate thus waking Rixie up to let me out.

6:47 Wag tail harder. Nothing.

6:48 Fall back asleep.

7:59 Wake up. Begin to cry very softly to be let out of crate.

8:00 Nothing. Cry louder.

8:01 Go back to sleep.

8:56 Wake up. Cry softly to let Rixie know am awake. Hear expletive coming from Rixie's room. She's awake. Take expletive as encouragement and begin to cry in earnest.

9:01 She's coming, she's coming, she's coming to let me out. Make excited noises to know am appreciating it.

9:02 Let out of crate. Get so excited by the prospect of breakfast, forget what I am doing and run into next room. Run directly back when hear puppy chow being poured into bowl. Run into cabinet door in excitement.

9:03 Begin eating.

9:03 and a half Finish eating. Run to door and tackle Rixie from the back to show am ready to go outside.

9:04 Do business. Come back inside.

9:15 Jump on Rixie's bed. Get pushed off bed by Rixie who is burrowed under blankets.

9:16 Try again. Get pushed down again.

9:17 Eat used Kleenexes out of bathroom garbage can.

9:20 Am so excited by something, run around the loop in house four times. Am shooting for five when I discover Rixie is up and making something in the kitchen.

9:21 Climb on table to find out what she is making.

9:22 Get yelled at. Get off table.

9:23 Play fetch while Rixie is eating and reading.

10:01 Tire of fetch. Sit on chair in living room staring into space.

10:46 Find living room boring. Move into blue room. Sit on chair staring into space.

11:03 Hear Rixie calling me. Do not respond.

11:04 Rixie finds me and sits with me in chair. She is talking baby talk which I do NOT respond to. Ever.

11:17 Hear neighbors getting home. Am upset by noise they are making as they enter their apartment. Bark to let them have it.

11:31 Do not stop barking until Rixie threatens, "Kennel up." Am silenced immediately.

11:37 Play more fetch.

12:02 Run more loops in the house.

12:13 Chew a bone.

12:15 Abandon bone for highlighter.

12:16 Get yelled at for chewing highlighter.

12:18 Growl at a cat through the window.

12:21 Sniff in bathroom garbage while Rixie takes shower. Get yelled at.

12:42 Scratch at door to go outside.

12:43 Scratch at door to go inside. Am ignored.

12:44 Begin sniffing leaves and diggin holes.

1:02 Am let back inside. Rixie is talking on phone. Burrow under couch hoping to find buried treasure.

1:04 Climb on kitchen table hoping to find treasure.

1:06 Scratch at pillows on Rixie's bed hoping to find treasure.

1:08 Am thrown outside.

1:31 Am let back inside.

1:32 Fall asleep on Rixie's lap.

2:37 Go for a drive with Rixie. She is clearly feeling guilty for abandoning me for speech contest the last two months.

3:03 Run more circles in the house.

3:46 Fall asleep on the couch.

4:02 Bark at doorbell on TV.

4:26 Bark at ringing phone on TV.

5:46 Run back and forth between living room and kitchen to let Rixie know it's time for supper.

5:55 Eat supper.

5:55 and a half Finish supper.

5:56 Go outside. Do business.

5:59 Come inside. Run loops in the house.

6:03 Chew bone.

6:09 Attack stuffed bear like it is a predator. Tear stuffing out.

6:15 Abandon bear for Rixie's pants. Attack ferociously.

6:16 Get thrown outside.

6:23 Get let back in after much begging.

6:24 Knock over trash.

6:25 Fall asleep on the couch.

8:01 Move to chair. Fall asleep on chair.

8:31 Bark at own reflection in window. Get yelled at.

9:13 Cuddle with Rixie.

9:15 Am finished cuddling, but she won't let go. Bite her. Hard.

9:16 Get pushed off the furniture and yelled at.

9:32 Fall asleep on Rixie.

10:02 Kennel up. Fall asleep.


Repeat process tomorrow. It's a good life.

The Romance Collection: The Scarlet Pimpernel

I recently spent $80 on a 14-DVD set collection of A&E/BBC miniseries (it was totally worth every penny and I would have paid more for it). The DVDs included:

Pride & Prejudice (the single greatest miniseries ever created with the possible exception of Anne of Green Gables)
Victoria & Albert (which I first saw as a sophomore in college when it first came out)
Ivanhoe
Emma
The Scarlet Pimpernel
Lorna Doone
Tom Jones
Jane Eyre


Here comes the third review:

The Scarlet Pimpernel
IT ROCKED MY FACE OFF!!!!!! First of all, the actors were AWESOME!!! Usually in these miniseries, you're lucky if you find even one person that you warm up to (obviously not counting Pride & Prejudice) or find attractive. My biggest pet peeve is when (and it happens in EVERY BBC production script) Character B says about Character A, "S/he is so beautiful" and viewers at home are like WTF??????????? because they are totally NOT beautiful and it's an insult to the average person's intelligence to believe that they are. You know? Well, in this case, the actors are EFFING PERFECT!!!! The actor playing the Scarlet Pimpernel is just the right amount of foppishly flamboyant. That totally makes him sound gay, but, believe me, if you're watching it, you don't think that at all because he is also really cool (not in a leather jacket and shades kind of way, but in a suave, grace-under-pressure kind of way) and a little sexist (but in the bossy/macho/Captain von Trapp/"I must protect my wife no matter what!"/hot kind of way).

His wife, Lady Blakeney, has just the right amount of repressed I'm-still-in-love-with-my-husband-even-though-he's-distant-with-me heartache to make us feel for her while her anger at being rejected by her emotionally unavailable (for reasons she doesn't understand) husband saves her character from being a sap. Not to worry, you purists out there, her anger at him is distinctly lady-like. For you feminists out there, her anger is especially satisfying because he's such a cold fish (until, of course she figures out he's the Scarlet Pimpernel and then she's no longer angry, but all kick-ass in a Victorian sort of way. Well, except for the fact that she's French.)

The best part is it's surprisingly funny and the flirting between Sir and Lady Blakeney (post her discovery he's the pimpernel) is deliciously adorable. All in all, I give it 5 stars out of 5.

The Romance Collection: Tom Jones

I recently spent $80 on a 14-DVD set collection of A&E/BBC miniseries (it was totally worth every penny and I would have paid more for it). The DVDs included:

Pride & Prejudice (the single greatest miniseries ever created with the possible exception of Anne of Green Gables)
Victoria & Albert (which I first saw as a sophomore in college when it first came out)
Ivanhoe
Emma
The Scarlet Pimpernel
Lorna Doone
Tom Jones
Jane Eyre


Here comes the secondreview:

Tom Jones
The miniseries is a farce in the typical Henry Fielding way, so if you're into that, you will probably enjoy this miniseries. I, however, while enjoying it, had a hard time getting past a couple of things:

1) Lurkey, Tom's cousin (affectionately nicknamed so because of his habit to lurk in the corners and spy on all the other characters), is boh-ring!! Good thing he's fairly good looking!

2) Fate REALLY had it in for these characters. I mean in a Romeo & Juliet I-am-out-to-get-you-no-matter-what-you-do kind of way. Until the very end, that is. (Not to spoil it for you, but it is a happy ending. Otherwise, I totally would NOT have watched it. )

3) But it almost ISN'T a happy ending and there's only one reason for it. To put it bluntly, TOM JONES IS A WHORE!!!!!! If Tom could keep his pants zipped, EVERYONE would have been saved a lot of heartache and trouble, including Sophie, the love of his life, nearly getting raped twice and married off to different but equally disturbing men (one of those men being Lurkey who is only marrying her to make her miserable and to get back at Tom Jones for being fun and popular. Here's an idea, Lurkey: SMILE once in a while and maybe you'll make friends. Also, stop letting people's favorite pets run away. That may help too.) Course, if Tom could have kept his pants zipped, there wouldn't have been a story, but all things considered, I'm not sure that would have been that bad of a punishment.

Still, for the most part, it was fairly enjoyable. There were some funny lines and amusing parts. Most of the credit, however, goes to Sophie, who's love eventually redeems Tom's whoring, and who's portrayer eventually redeems the story with her delightful acting. I give it 3 out of 5 stars.

The Romance Collection: Ivanhoe

I recently spent $80 on a 14-DVD set collection of A&E/BBC miniseries (it was totally worth every penny and I would have paid more for it). The DVDs included:

Pride & Prejudice (the single greatest miniseries ever created with the possible exception of Anne of Green Gables)
Victoria & Albert (which I first saw as a sophomore in college when it first came out)
Ivanhoe
Emma
The Scarlet Pimpernel
Lorna Doone
Tom Jones
Jane Eyre

Here comes the first review:

Ivanhoe
Overall, it was pretty good but here are my complaints:

1. Saxons should totally have shaved. Their scraggly-Gimli beards are so not hot.

2. One of the girls was totally ugly and had a line, "Am I not beautiful?" I was like, um, no Shylock, thanks for playing. UGH!! I hate when they cast ugly girls in parts that are supposed to be beautiful. Especially when the main character falls in love with them and you're all, okay a) you're ugly, and b) you're personality is stupid too, and c) I hate your fake accent.

3. There was WAY too much fighting and war stuff going on. Plus, it's the BBC, so it's super slow and unimpressive. I mean, if you MUST have a sword fight, at least watch Pirates of the Caribbean and choreograph it correctly. Even if Pirates wasn't around for six more years.

So I'd have to give it two and a half stars out of five.

9-11

I was a sophomore in college at the time. I woke up that morning and realized I was late for class. I scrambled into the shower and dressed, then hurried the half block from my dorm to where my class was located in the basement of the chemistry building. The class was intro to social work and when my professor started class, he was unusually somber.

As long as I live I will never forget his words. "In light of what' s happened today, we won't be having class." There was a long pause, and he seemed to understand that most of us had no idea what he was talking about. He continued, "Terrorists have crashed into the World Trade Center in New York." He said more in his quiet, somber voice, but I don't remember what he said. I remember staring at the seat in front of me and trying to wrap my mind around this news, along with the rest of my classmates, the rest of the campus, the rest of the country.

I remember thinking of the president, and then reminding myself matter-of-factly, that President Clinton was no longer in office; President Bush was who I should be thinking of. I reflected that I still wasn't used to the change, and then wondered why I was thinking of that.

We were released from class and I hurried home. I have no memory of whether or not my roommate was there or at what point our friend Kelley staggered into our room. I do know I was still sitting in class sitting in shock and then blinking back tears of confusion, of rage, when the first tower fell. I had made it back to my dorm room in time to see the second tower fall at 9:29 a.m. central standard time.

Kelley and I sat on the futon in my room watching the news all morning and all afternoon, only taking a break to go to our classes that we knew would be canceled. I headed to my novels class knowing it would be canceled but needing to go anyway. Our professor sat at a student's desk with us and asked us what we should do. Someone suggested going to the hospital, one of the major hospitals in the country, and donating blood, but we never made it there. Somehow walking the half mile there was too exhausting. We found out later that they were turning people away anyway because people had donated so much blood and they didn't have enough room to store it.

I met Natalie for our next class over 1920s literature and culture. Our professor staggered in wearing his jeans and sneakers. "We can't have class today. Can you guys sit in class today?" He looked so shell-shocked that I immediately burst into tears. On the way home, we remembered he had family in New York City.

Back in our dorm, I remember Natalie begging us to turn it off; she couldn't watch anymore. Kelley and I ignored her requests and sat on the futon the rest of the afternoon, holding hands and crying in silence.

The next day, there was a moment of silence at the exact time of the first plane hitting the tower. I went to my classes but I no longer have any recollection of what they were.

That day, the 12th, was Natalie's birthday. Her dad was in town and he took us and our two friends, Sara and Jenni, out to dinner. We went to an upscale restaurant, a place that as college students we would never have been able to afford. The most serious thing I thought at dinner was that I wish her dad hadn't ordered red wine for me because I hate it but I didn't want to be rude when he was paying for it. We laughed and talked for close to two hours, and when we stepped outside, it was like getting kicked in the stomach. I felt ashamed and amazed that I had been able to forget about the attacks for so long. After crying for more than 24 hours straight like most of the country, I knew I had needed that break.

We watched New York's senators and Rudy Guiliani speak and cry and pray. We made sure we were all home to watch the fundraising that America's top celebrities were pulling together. Half a nation away, it still consumed our lives.

Like many others across the country, I bought every newspaper and every magazine that could tell me about the attacks, and more importantly, the victims and the survivors. I saved them and store them in a drawer along with newspapers from the days Princess Diana and Mother Teresa died, and the days of my high school and college graduations.

I think of the terrorists nearly every day but sometimes I get worried that I'm forgetting the victims, and in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, I worry that the lives and lessons of 9-11 are too quickly forgotten.

When this happens, I go to my drawer, I pull out the newspapers and magazines, look at the pictures and take myself back.

We remember.

Conversation in class...

Jay: "I know the answer!! I know the answer!!"

Me: "Well, Jay, why don't you share the answer?"

Jay (sitting back in his desk): No, I don't want my group to yell at me. They think I'm an idiot."
(Which is true--they do think he's an idiot, but no one's judging him for it so we're all okay in the knowledge that he is one.)

Ryan: Jay, look around you. Do we look like the type of group that's going to yell?"

Pause as we all look around. I don't know what they see, but I see one 17-year-old boy reclining on a bean bag under a table and ten 17-year-old boys lounging in their desks, heads bent so far forward it almost looks like they're sleeping, mile-long legs stuck out into aisles, candy and pop bottles strewn around their desks, backpacks piled up with mounds of stuff falling out. I think to myself, Oh my God. What a mess this class is. Then I look again and see that they're leaning so far forward because they're looking at textbooks and trying to come up with answers for the review which they are all partaking in to prepare for the test tomorrow. I see that no one is making fun of anyone for stupid answers (and let's face it, there are several). I see the boy in the bean bag hop up every time someone answers to mark a score on the chalkboard. I see that out of their backpacks fall textbooks for my class, free reading books for my class--I see that they came prepared and ready to learn in the best way they know how. I have to respond.

So I pull out my bucket of prizes and ask, "Who wants candy?"

Miss Rixie's Goals for the Upcoming School Year

1. I will leave no child left behind ... except those who blatantly refuse to keep up by not doing their homework, yeah, they're so getting left behind. It's like those kids who won't get back in the car at the rest stop when Dad stops to go to the bathroom, and then he has to drive away to teach Kid a lesson so that it won't happen again. Well, I'll be the one teaching those idiots a lesson: You snooze, you lose ... but beyond that, I will leave no child left behind. Unless they really deserve it. Obviously. Okay, will leave a minimal amount of children behind.

2. Will do a minimal amount of study guides and instead try to find a more engaging way to teach students.

3. Will not allow Scary-Mary from next door to torment me by blazing in the door in all her glory to yell at students to keep noise down and glaring at me from behind her glasses only to mock-apologize the next hour. Will simply explain that I, unlike her, do not choose to teach by making my students keep their noses in their books five days a week without ever discussing what they're reading or doing activities to keep them engaged.

4. Will write a kickin' choral reading script for speech season beginning in November/December. My choral reading kids will not be subjected to Scary-Mary's "I am a better speech coach" attitude because they will be too caught up in what an awesome job they are doing putting it together.

5. Make choral reading more of a student-led event. Instead of having me do everything (write script, figure out poses, etc.) will encourage the kids to figure out how they want to stand, what they want to do, how they will be grouped, etc. Yeah!!

6. Will not allow self to feel intimidated by scary/psycho members of staff such as scary gym teacher who looks me up and down and could be my grandfather (well, a really young grandfather anyway) and Bitchy-Brenda and Bragger Barb and, obviously, Scary-Mary. Will introduce self to new student teacher since I know how it feels to be a young woman on staff in a building full of middle-aged men who haven't been outside small town in last two decades.

7. Be tougher when grading--make my students have to work for it. But also motivate them by doing kicking activities that stretch their critical thinking and application skills.

8. Will concentrate on reading skills and improving reading abilities in classroom by doing research, practicing different reading strategies with students, and generally, becoming Queen of the Reading Pool of Knowledge.

9. Will not allow self to get roped into doing things for other teachers such as stage or technical manager or director, etc. Will be strong and stick to my guns. Will be self-confident and self-assured. Mean what I say and support what I mean.

10. Will kick Iowa Standards and Benchmarks of Teaching in the ass, rock my Individual Career Development Plan into orbit, and make my Reading Strategies rule all. As Esme said, I will kick pedagogical ass.

Miss Rixie Recommends... (3rd Annual Book Review Part II)

1. Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince by J.K. Rowling
Weeks after I finished reading it, I cannot stop thinking about it. This is one of those rare books that, when reminiscing about it, I remember the emotions I felt while reading it more specifically than the actual events in the book. What a rare gift to be able to conjure up such powerful emotions in a reader, but Rowling has done just that, and in doing so, Harry joins the likes of Atticus Finch and Jay Gatsby and Anne Shirley.

2. Molly Moon's Incredible Book of Hypnosis by Georgia Bying
While only halfway done with this book, I couldn't resist putting it on the list. There's no other word for it--not only is Molly's book incredible, she's incredible. What a fun heroine!

3. Sing a Song of Tuna Fish by Esme Raji Codell
She never disappoints...

4. Eleven on Top by Janet Evanovich
Hilarious as ever. Evanovich keeps cranking out the Stephanie Plum adventures and, amazingly, they keep living up to their reputation. Miss Rixie recommends reading this one while lying on the beach if at all possible.

5. The Princess Diaries VI by Meg Cabot
This woman is talented!! Read anything by Cabot and you won't be disappointed. I'm convinced she's actually six women posing as one because she cranks out so many books in a year and updates her blog all the time. If only I were one-tenth as productive. Sigh...

Next up on Miss Rixie's reading list:
Dancing in the Dark by Mary Jane Clark
1-800-Where-R-U series by Meg Cabot
Molly Moon Stops the World by Georgia Bying
Artemis Fowl by Eoin Colfer
Diary of a Fairy Godmother by Esme Raji Codell

Aesthetic Overload

My room is beautiful. I have five rows of desks, each row five deep. My desk is at the front, to the left of where you stand when walking in. I still have my desktop covered in magazine pictures, postcards, notes from students, etc. that make me smile and feel creatively tingly whenever I look at it. The front of my desk, where the students can see is covered in three posters. They say things like “Those who don’t dream, don’t dare” and the like. They’re colorful and brighten up the place. Around my desk I’ve hung little Christmas lights covered in these pastel boxes that I got in college and Natalie and I hung around our lofts. They’re the perfect size. On my computer desk which is next to my regular teacher desk, I’ve put an array of pictures: me, Kim, and Ashley in front of firefighter Herky our senior year; one of Nat and me (it’s actually at a bar, but you can’t tell); one of Kim, Ash, Ro and me on my twenty-first birthday (I’m holding the book [it’s a sex book, but you can’t tell], the picture frame they had engraved for me, and the camera they gave me as presents); and one of Brennan holding Darcy the first day I got her. I look stupid in the one of me and Natty so I’m going to change it, I just never remember. I also have Iowa pom-poms floating leisurely over the corner (I went all out on the Hawkeye—I was going to say merchandise, but propaganda might be a better word.)

Behind my desk our my three file cabinets. This corner was always an area of contention for me last year. It was ugly and plain and the posters were hung crooked. Now I have a beautiful poster of a bookshelf with four shelves. On the top shelf it says “Literary Genres.” On the following three shelves it says things like “Fables,” “Fiction,” “Nonfiction,” and “Drama” with pictures of books and the like. Next to that are two posters—one of Mark Twain and one of Maya Angelou, both hung neatly at an angle. (Never again will I try to hang anything straight!) On my file cabinet I have a lovely license plate that says Iowa Hawkeyes, my 2004 Graduate Beanie Baby, and my IHSSA speech mug that I won last year. On another cabinet, I have little dolls of Mark Twain, Edgar Allan Poe, and Shakespeare (Wills looks really scary, but they’re so fun!) courtesy of my mother. Also courtesy of her are the little finger magnetic puppets I have of Willa Cather (or is it Virginia Woolf? I think it’s Virginia), Shakespeare and Twain again, and Jane Austen. On the last file cabinet I have my hot pink flowery bucket filled with antibacterial handsoap, Bath & Body scented wipes, and lotion. It’s my own personal feel-good, smell-good spa corner.

On the bulletin board directly next to the corner and my computer is my “Ready, Set, Read!” board leftover from last year. It’s covered in bookmarks and I have to say, it’s still one of my favorite bulletin boards. Next to that, on the chalkboard square that’s partially covered by my computer monitor so basically rendered unusable are the 12 “Get Caught Reading” posters I got for $5. I mounted most on construction paper so they look especially beautiful. Around that I strung the Hawkeye lights I got at Iowa Book & Supply, aka Book n Crook, for $20. Whatever, they are worth every penny.

In the back of the room, near the door that leads into Kelli’s room, I covered the first of two bulletin boards with all the pictures of Agatha Christie I made color copies of (and ha laminated) for $25 at Staples. TWENTY-FIVE DOLLARS!!! RIP-OFF!! But it looks beautiful—I have to make sure I take a picture. I have an oversized sheet of notebook paper thanks to The Learning Post that I wrote the poem from And Then There Were None on last year. It has to be visible to all the kids because we talk about it every day before and while reading. Surrounding that is a list of every Agatha Christie book she ever wrote (but don’t be picturing a grocery list, it’s really cute with pictures of books drawn on and stuff). Below that are pictures of books made into movies, Christie as a young woman, Miss Marple, Hercule Poirot, and Christie in possible various disguises after her disappearance. I also found 20 different pictures of covers of And Then there Were None on google and printed it on pretty paper and cut with fun scrapbook scissors. Way fun!!

Next to that bulletin board is the another, oversized board that I did last summer as well. It’s my “Oh, the Places You’ll Go” board with pictures of covers of books like The Princess Bride, Holes, Wicked, and The Shawshank Redemption, to name a few. Next to that, I made tags on the computer that tell the places you’ll go, like Florin, Camp Greenlake, Oz, and jail. Also one of my favorites.

Above the chalkboards and bulletin boards on that side of the room, I have five other posters that are all very colorful and say things like, “You look at something and say ‘Why?’ I look at something at say, ‘Why not?’” or something along the lines of that. There’s also my Martin Luther King, Jr. banner and a cool drawing of Stratford-on-Avon someone donated to me and I had laminated. It’s done on scroll-like paper and makes me feel Renaissance-y when I look at it or touch it.

In the back corner of the room, opposite my desk and file cabinets, is my big poster of Mark Twain (which I had laminated and now looks beautiful) with one of my favorite quotes that something to the effect of he was sorry to hear himself named as one of the great writers because they have a habit of dying off. “Chaucer’s gone, Shakespeare’s dead, and I’m not feeling too well myself.” Next to that is another poster, but I can’t actually remember what it is right now. Then there’s the Communications 12 bulletin board which I have my white board we have to use for lesson plans stapled to. My table is there too with close to 250 textbooks piled on and the AR computer which I have done nothing about yet.

Then there’s my closet—pretty much the same as last year. I added Kelli’s “Here is your brain, here is your brain on books” signs and my “Books are the carrier of civilization” sign to the Shakespeare and language posters I have there. Next to my closet is the door to the hallway. I have my favorite poster of all time hanging on the door. It’s a Lord of the Rings poster with a picture of those horses that chase Liv Tyler and rolling across the bottom in flaming words, it says, “Moving words create moving pictures.” How appropriate! Below that is the reading strategy poster—right where no one will ever look at it. Oh well, I could tape it to my forehead and I’m pretty sure no one would read it. Hell, *I* barely I wanted to read it, and I read the nutritional label on cereal boxes at breakfast just so I have something to read.

Kelli donated a “don’t censor yourself” posters with pictures of banned or controversial books (including The Giver) and I hung it next to the poster I have with the word “Read” on it in many different languages including sign language. Actually, come to think of it, that might be my favorite poster.

That’s next to the bulletin board of “Before it was a movie…” where I put pictures of book covers right next to the movie poster it was turned into. For example, there are pictures of the book and movie of Master & Commander and The Princess Bride. My favorites though are: the picture of Oh Brother, Where Art Thou? next to The Odyssey, and the picture of Emma next to Clueless, and 10 Things I Hate about You next to The Taming of the Shrew.

Next to that is the ninth grade chalkboard with their whiteboard where lesson plans go. Above that is a new poster that has suggestions for more descriptive words on it. There’s something else there too, but I can’t remember what. Above the next chalkboard is my READ! banner, and next to that is the poster with the butterfly on it. That’s above where my history will be.

There’s there the most boring bulletin board in my room (well, not counting the communications one): the one with all the charts and stuff to keep track of how much they’re reading. Above it is a poster that says “Don’t forget to read” with a bow around a finger. It’s stupid, but too fitting to toss. On the board there’s a poster with Readers’ Rights. The right to read, to not read, to skip pages, etc. In front of that is where I’m gonna have to keep my TV. Next to it are three posters, one for high school awards, Teen award, and Children’s award. Below those posters is my white bookshelf with series and nonfiction and Miss Acton’s Recommendations on it.

That brings me to the front of the room, my favorite area. When I walk in the door and see that front wall, I just feel happy! There’s my little table (currently covered in piles of papers to be passing out the first two days to my two classes). There are two bookshelves lining the front wall filled with my own books on one shelf, dictionaries on another, Holocaust literature on a third, and then regular the regular fiction takes up the rest of it. Above the first bookshelf are all my Romeo & Juliet posters arranged at an angle and looking very lovely. I also have a poster with instructions on how to check out a book from me. I also have little labels on the bookshelves which are new and done in fun fonts. Then I have one of those spinny bookshelf things where all my mystery/horror/suspense type books are. And then we’re back at my desk and filing cabinets.

I’m sorry, but my room ROCKS!!! As Esme said, I feel bad for any teacher who’s not in here. Wait, Esme totally did not say that. Esme said she feels sorry for any kid not in here. Well, that too, but seriously, have you SEEN the science and math rooms? I would be so depressed if I were in those rooms!! I totally kick!!