gerunds

Smoking.  I keep seeing signs for cigarette brands on my way to and from work, advertising such “enticing” prices as over $4 a pack.  Now when I started smoking in 1975, I bought two packs for 99 cents.  That was a good price, especially considering that it took me extremely little time to go from being a non-smoker to smoking two packs a day.  Isn’t college grand?  I remember I pretty much looked like a dork and my swell dorm sisters showed me how to smoke and look less stupid.

A few of us tried to quit, and that was a dreadful week.  The next time I tried to quit was when I actually succeeded, in 1992.  Generics had recently come out, and I switched from Marlboro 100s to some sort of generic 100s.  I paid between five and ten dollars a carton.  Carton.  Ten packs.  Not one.  So I’m always shocked to see how much the price has gone up!

Learning.  I’ve signed up to take a course the first week of June (June 2-6).  We do three major science units and one smaller one.  We recently finished the major one on electric circuits, but of course I didn’t have much prior knowledge on the subject.  The course is to help you better teach that particular subject.  It sounds a little like John Muir Academy — except — THEY’RE PAYING ME!!  Yep!  It is part of a grant, and so I will not only learn how to teach something that I’m interested in learning how to teach (it’s mandatory, but also very interesting), I’ll get paid for it to boot!  Of course, knowing the district, there’s no telling WHEN I’ll get paid for it, but still!

Teaching.  Today I got to watch another teacher teach the reading program.  It was great!  There was a part I wanted to see that I couldn’t because she didn’t have time to do it today, but I still learned a lot.  My own class had a sub, and it was Day 5 of that story’s reading cycle so the sub gave the test.  My behavior system is kind of complicated, so I quickly assigned a couple of roles and pointed out two very trustworthy students.  No one had to call 911 and the pod was still intact, so I guess it went well enough!

The bottom four of my students alphabetically were absent today.  I’m guessing it’s still the flu.  One of them was my student who missed seven days recently due to pneumonia.  Last Monday we had a math test, and he’d only been back that day so all he got was the review, plus whatever he managed to pick up before he left.  He still scored higher than some of the students who were there the whole time!!!

Um, can’t think of another gerund.  If you have any photos you’re willing to share with my reading audience, feel free to e-mail them!  Sue recently sent snow pics but I forgot to ask if I could post them, so I haven’t yet.  But a lot of you know at least some of the reading audience, so if you have pics that can be posted, do let me know!

flashback

I was driving home last night and a car passed me that made this scraping sound.  I had a flashback to a car I used to have when I lived here before.  Let’s start with the fact that I had minimal income and minimal coping skills.  I don’t remember which car this was, but it was probably the Green Hornet (which I named Kato, of course!).  The exhaust pipe (I’m guessing — I remember it was a long pipe under the center of the car) wasn’t attached to what it was supposed to be attached to.  Perhaps a clamp had come off.  I had it rigged with wire or a coat hanger and a short piece of metal pipe.  This would keep the big pipe elevated for a while, but whenever I’d go over a bump, the thing would come undone.  Then the pipe would drag and make that nasty noise.  I’d have to pull over, lie on the ground, reach under and pop the thing back up again, and move on.  My church had a bump in the parking lot, so you know I went through this at least once a week.  I have no clue why I thought this was easier than any other solution!  But as soon as I heard the noise last night from that other car, my first thought was pulling over and popping the pipe back up again.

People in context:  Last night I was at Village Inn with the folks and ran into Christine.  I actually didn’t recognize her at first!  There is something about seeing people out of context that changes the recognition factor or something.  There was nothing visually unusual about her from what I’m used to; I just wasn’t expecting to see her and so the “Christine file” in my brain was tucked away in a drawer somewhere and it took longer to access.  Weird.

I was going to make a trip (aside from my Wisconsin trip) this summer to a convention, but it looks like that may not happen.  I do not get year-round pay this year, because of when I was officially hired.  That means that I have between now and the end of May to pay my rent for May, June, July, and August (as well as March and April) and make sure I have enough money for gas, utilities, and food.  Plus I have to take the other half of the SEI training so that I can fix my certification before school starts in August.  Fun.  Not.

The kitties went outside yesterday.  Harry came back within  a reasonable amount of time, like a good boy (or like a cat who has been homeless for years and wants to make sure I don’t forget to let him back in).  Ginny took another hour or so to return, and of course she doesn’t come when she’s called; never has, never will.  When she did finally arrive, I shut the patio door.  After she visited for a while she went to the back door — and HOWLED!  How dare I not let her back out!!  You have to know, she’s this little bitty thing that was named Squeaks or Squeak in her former life, and aptly so!

Went traipsing through Facebook last night for people I know.  I found two former students whose mothers I had been friends with, so I sent them a note including my e-mail for their mothers.  I also found another Syracuse friend’s daughter and did the same.  The latter “girl” was the niece of Sr. James Therese.  She took me over to her sister’s a few times my last year there, and I was included sometimes when they did things together or when they came over to our convent.  When I left, Julia was maybe 9.  Amazing how much older kids get in 5 1/2 years!  Funny how adults don’t age! 

When my father gets more computer skills, he really needs to start a blog!  He can begin with his water adventures of this past weekend.  It wasn’t pretty.  By the time I got there yesterday, though, they only had the bedroom fan/heater going and were able to leave the livingroom one off during the day.

12-31-07

Before I begin, I want to point out the photo above. It is one of the scenic views I took on the way up to Mt. Lemmon. I love it!

Did I begin yet? Nope. Here http://www.snopes.com/holidays/newyears/beliefs.asp is a link from an e-mail Ronnie sent me this morning. I love it, and it’s worth posting here. It shows various New Year’s traditions and superstitions, most of which I’ve never heard of. I do look forward to finding someone tall, dark, and handsome to cross my threshold though! (I’m not holding my breath, of course…)

NOW did I start? I have to tell you — I went to this nunly workshop once and this woman went on and on and on. If you’ve seen the Harry Potter movies, she was a lot like Professor Trelawny, without the ghastly glasses. Around TEN in the morning, she said “OK, now we can start.” The thing is, she’d already been talking around an hour and a half!!

I briefly considered doing a year in review, but there were parts of the year that definitely weren’t worth remembering. There were good parts, though.

School: I loved being able to bring in visitors to my classroom. We had Mr. Kates and Jeff … I forget his last name now … talk about newspapers. Mr. Kates works for the Milwaukee one and Jeff for the Ft. Atkinson one in the sports department. Mrs. Voie came in and quilted with the class (I hope the quilt is still up in the office, because it was cool!), and Mrs. … (dang, I’ll put her name in later) came and planted flowers with us as well as talked about working at a garden center. Seth came and talked about college life, and Mr. & Mrs. Breuer talked about their trip to Ghana. We learned about being a school principal and we learned about having a son with cystic fibrosis. Mrs. Arnold came and showed us the importance of hand washing (with her special light) and my brother visited after the Mass that was offered for my grandmother, who had died last summer. We also had visitors come to morning circle with us.

Ahh, least year was the year of student lunches as well. Each week a boy or girl (they took turns) was chosen and they could have three friends join them. We’d eat lunch together, the four of them and I, and it was always a fascinating experience and often fun as well. Chess club, the web site … these were things I enjoyed. My vision for the web site was a place that was friendly as well as informative and useful. I had seen other school web sites and avoided what I didn’t like — web sites that have no intimacy, that are more like a poster on the outside of a locked school. I wanted one that welcomed people in and kept them informed of what was happening. I liked that all the spelling lists were readily available, as well as grading rubrics, photos of events, etc. Oh, well.

I had fun with the teachers and will never forget “the perp” when I see a Nativity scene! I will probably forever be able to sign “America the Beautiful,” although it’s a skill without much purpose now. I also remember frozen pool parties, but that wasn’t this year!

More later — I need to go make coffee or tea!

I showed my family the Ducky Wishes book and the quilt on Christmas Eve when they came. Those were both incredible! The tea pots are in my china cabinet for all to see.

Oooh, a memory from one of the workshops we went to — being impatient with Sue chatting with a friend so I stepped away and called her on her cell phone from mine! I’m baaaaaaaaaaaaaaad when I’m ready to go home!

It was fun being in a building where all the classrooms are inside — who knew that was something I was leaving behind? I liked wandering into other classrooms and chatting, or seeing Margie’s puppy, or Joe and Annie popping in, singing “da bunny” to Judy … but I don’t miss recess duty (even though I dearly miss both recess and specials! and cubbies, too!).

There are way too many things to mention, but then again most of my life was school/church. There were rare trips to Gurnee to see Mary, and now I have to figure out how to get out there and do that again. We had great times together, but I don’t think I made it out there in 2007 at all.

What wasn’t school/church/internet (a LOT of time was on the internet) was spent in Mt. Horeb. It’s not really all that much further than going from work to my father’s place, but it seemed much further away. Of course I don’t drive in snow to get to my father’s, and it’s all city driving so that if something happens to the car I’m not on the side of the road in the middle of nowhere, which happened outside Verona one very cold December night. But 2007 did include many trips out to see John and the kids, as well as visits from John and the kids and Lisa.

It’s really weird to think that I’m the only one in the family to have met Lisa! (But I will pause a moment and ask you to keep Lisa’s family in your prayers.) John and Lisa came out and we went to eat at the train depot, which was nice. I didn’t even know it was there until the night I went there with Denise and Dale and … I forget who else … just that afterwards we went to Heather’s and that’s where I got necklaces for Betty for Christmas last year. Ginny (my cat) got along well with John and Lisa, but I’m still (now that the stress is over) glad that I brought her with me. My sister’s church group was praying that there’d be a way to bring Ginny with me, by the way!

I liked my visits to Mt. Horeb and miss being able to just drive out there or John calling and showing up after Mass. But those things are on my list of good memories for 2007.

Moving here (or is that surviving the move to here?) would definitely be a huge highlight of 2007. I would get bummed out over the stupid licensure stuff, but I haven’t been depressed since I got here, which was a huge change since basically I got depressed the beginning of last November and stayed that way most of the time through June. Here it’s not just that there are many places to go and things to do and people to do them with, but there’s also sunshine – tons of it. I don’t remember a day when it didn’t shine at all, even in the monsoon season. It makes a big difference! But yeah, so does being here with old friends, and if there’s something I want to do there’s someone to do it with!

Another highlight of moving here is having a sister. I’m not sure how to explain this and not hurt anyone’s feelings. But really, it seems like when I moved to Wisconsin I had a brother for the first time in decades. He was no longer a person who happened to have the label “brother” on him, but rather he was really a brother. And now that I’ve moved here it’s like I have a sister for the first time in decades as well. Most of the people I know come from functioning families, so they won’t get it. But it’s weird to be 50 and be a part of a family for the first time in way too many years! Well, it’s also weird to be 50, but we won’t go there!

You have read the things I’ve done (probably) since I moved here, because they were blogged, so I don’t need to go over them again.  Brief highlights include going to church with my neighbor Adriana; Sunday brunch with Del, Laura, Christine, and Diana; Saturday dinner with Dad, Dottie, Buz, Jemma, and Jaeden; HAVING A TEACHING LICENSE (oh, did I shout?  Sorry!); having a teaching position where I feel needed; having my kitty (and soon to get one of Donna’s tame strays); completing NaNoWriMo (even though that story needs a ton of work); lots of good things this year!  Another highlight was printing out my story and getting copies bound and delivered for Christmas.  That is something I did that I feel proud about, whether it turns out they like the story or hate it!

Next year?  Who knows.