Followthrough

I was lamenting recently...because I do that a lot.  Lament.  About the state of our nation.  HA.  No.  I was lamenting about the lack of follow through at my current job.  Well, I don't want to lay all the blame on my current position.  I think the education world overall suffers from a lack of follow through.  I mean HEY, they even wrote a cliche about it.  "Easier said that done."  And gosh isn't that true.  People in education like to talk a lot.  I mean duh.  Teachers talk.  It's part of the learning process.  I like to put some motion into my talking.  Which is sort of like FOLLOW THROUGH.  Then my energetic friend reminded me that somebody even wrote a song about it.

                                                         See!  Hear!!

While I don't love that song.  I do love it's message.  Which brings me to my next rant about the beloved SouthWORST airlines.  If you're an avid fan of the my cyber musings you may recall the April Vacation debacle that was put in motion by my delayed SouthWORST flight.  Luckily, (or so I thought) my ticket was fully refunded.  I just had to wait 4 weeks for the credit to my bank account.  As I'm sure you can imagine fans that time has passed.  And still no money.  Why?  No follow through. 
  Yesterday I called the SouthWORST customer helpline and they had no record of my refund.  They could see that I hadn't taken the flight and that it had been delayed over two hours.  But no money.  Now I have to go through a completely different channel to resubmit my refund.  Fantastic. 

  Last night I wrote most of this post and it got deleted.  Today...because I want to emulate the power of follow through.  Finish what I started and keep tabs on it until completion.  I could write an entire script based on what my students say while I listen to them talk.  But alas, I must attend to other things.  More updates soon!

A la prochaine!

LIVE TO TELL

Update for the win!!  I realize I've stopped answering my blog prompts BUT I think now that I'm in the up swing of regular updates I can find my own life prompts to tantalize and entertain you.  That being said.  I celebrated my birthday on Saturday.  And I learned something, Saturday Birthdays are the best!!  I'll have to wait 6 maybe 7 years until it happens again.  By that time...who knows if I'll even remember writing this blog post.  Maybe in six/seven years it will be a delightful surprise as it was this past weekend.  The main reason I like having a saturday birthday is that I get to chillax.  No rush.  And I pretty much could do whatever I wanted.  Really that means. NO WORK!!  Inappropriate punctuation.  It's. the future; friends.

I made a comment a few weeks ago to my mom.  Saying something dumb like, "I can't believe I lasted this long".  This caused her to call me several days later and ask me what I meant by that comment.  I wanted to be like DUH MOM.  I thought I might not make it.  I'm still not convinced.  But I tell you what blogosphere.  I love every moment I've got.  Even the crazy ones.  Or the dark ones.  Or the annoying ones.

On my birthday I went to see the new Werner Herzog movie, Cave of Forgotten Dreams, about the Chavet cave where they found cave paintings from 30,000 years ago or some.  It was a thinking piece and gave me several points to ponder on my day of birth.  What persists beyond on humanity?  I'm not even sure that question makes sense.  But I think the answer is:  several things.  Onwards and upwards....more to tell later.

A la prochaine!  

Room 1 is the Command Center

Fans!  I'm here.  Alive and well updating my blog without two weeks passing.  What can I say, I was moved.  Mostly because it's protest week.  I wrote a little bit about it.  (Please see previous entry) Today was the Mall grade in.  It got written up on a local online new magazine, San Leandro Patch  and the article does more justice to the situation than I ever could.  Even though the cops coming really wasn't a big deal at all.  Mostly we just sat there and amazing I got some work done.  I think I might go grade at the food court more often....not.  See that, consistently trying to bring that back.  Across all environments people.  AAE.

Today my brother told me the bassist from TV on the Radio died.  My condolences.  For some reason the news made me feel very sad.  It also made me listen to their new album which is really awesome.  I recommend their movie that's kinda based on their album.  It makes me think lots of deep birthday thoughts.  This year my birthday falls on the same day as the day I was born.  It also made me feel really sad.  I can't imagine what it would be like to create something with someone and then have that person pass away.  It moved me fans.  Cray-cray.  But yeah, go check out Nine Types Artmusicmovie.  Also, this song that I'm going to post on the blog is fantastish.  I've been listening to this bands other albums a lot lately and what can I say.  I like it.  I recommend it.  Enjoy!

Is the Hangover 2 going to be funny?  I kept thinking they were in Tijuana but now I realize they are in Bangkok.  That's another awesome song!  One Night in Bangkok from the Chess soundtrack.  Someone please help me before I lose my mind completely.  It's fun to be a little nuts but I don't want to actually lose my mind!  

Tomorrow is Thank your teaching Allies day!  I want to say a hearty thank you to anyone who is not a teacher but knows a teacher, supports teachers, supporters kids, works with kids, supports schools, believes in public education.  You are appreciated and we couldn't do it without you.  Today my kiddos and I planted about 25 baby spider plants into Dixie cups that we painted.  I realized my students are in fact much smarter than I am.  I had them planting and then painting.  They taught ME it should be painting...letting it dry....and then planting.  My multitasking has reached incurable heights.And on that note...it's time for me to rest up.  A la prochaine!  

Forgotten Promises

I thought about updating my blog several times this week.  Somehow I never made it happen.  I've been writing every morning but those are not blog thoughts.  I know in order to maintain my fans I have to update my blog thoughts on a fairly regular basis.  But a weekly update isn't too bad.  I think my personal goal will be to never go longer than one week.  You know without updating. 

  Plus I'm so far behind on my blog prompts at this point I'll never run out of stuff to answer.  Either way I'm chipping away at my goal.  Keeping things on here fresh and international!  Bring the people what they don't even realize they need.  Yesterday I won 8 dollars and 75 cents at the Kentucky Derby.  I channeled a winning bet and went with Nehro for a Place.  Which actually happened.  The only problem: I only bet two dollars.  I should have been more sure of myself and I might have had a bundle of cashOLA.  That being said, betting really isn't my thing.  I understand very little of what I'm doing and only win money occasionally.  I'd give anything to be a card shark though...or a pool shark.  Oh yeah.  I fantasize about being a ringer.  Also, Derby hats are hilarious!  For example,  

  

                                               

And Derby Pie--something I'd never tasted, DELICIOUS!!!  It tastes like a giant chocolate chip cookie with pecans and a pie crust.  This photo is an accurate representation of the pie I ate--minus the whip cream.  It appears to be fairly easy to make.  Another tasty item at the Derby party was Bourbon punch.  I'm not much of a bourbon drinker but the punch was yummy and had a nice kick at the finish.  

  Today is MOTHER's DAY!  God bless all mothers.  The thing is I love my mom everyday.  It would have been nice to make my mom a good meal tonight.  Or bring her flowers.  Unfortunately she lives pretty far away.  People on facebook were doing all kinds of things to commemorate mothers.  Changing profile pictures, posting touching status updates.  Since I was far away from my mother today I decided to do lots of things that would make her proud.  I ate a good breakfast.  Wore my sweater when it got a little chilly.  Took a walk and got some exercise.  Didn't watch too much TV.  Took my vitamins.  Cleaned up my apartment.  Now I'm updating my blog...which if my mom knew about she would probably remind me to do that as well.  

Oh Sunday night at 10:30pm.  You're always hear.  Waiting for me.  It probably doesn't help that I took a nap from 3pm-6pm (blame it on the all-all-allergies).  Now comes the witching hour where I justify not even touching all the work I brought home.  Negotiate why I haven't even started doing my laundry.  It's going to be fun finding an outfit to wear tomorrow.  My most fashion forward outfits are born out of having no clean clothes. 

Monday is the beginning of the California State of Emergency.  

    It's a week long sort of protest thing about the state of Education in California.  I'm going to be posting stuff about it on face book tomorrow, just to get the info out of my social media crews.  Monday is call your Legislator Day.  Tuesday is a Mall Grade In at local malls across the state.  We're flash mobbing the Food Court baby!  Wednesday is all about showing appreciation for the other unions and non-teachers who support teachers and Education, like administrators, office ladies, custodians, instructional aides, bus drivers.  Thursday is more information giving, handing out fliers and making signs because Friday the 13th (duh nuh nuh) is the March in San Francisco.  I'm going all in for this one.  I figure the only way to experience it is to go for the gusto.  There are some Union members who are occupying state buildings in Sacremento.  If you're really interested read more here:  Teacherprotest  some of the comments after the article are nuts!  People have such strong opinions.  

And on that note, I should be going to bed.  A la prochaine! 

That's my MAMA!!!!

          

Mind grapes

I'm trying to become unstuck blogosphere.  In the Winter months I tend to dig my heels in and settle in.  Once I get to the end of February I start to get a little restless and by mid April I'm in full swing of Spring fertile green awesomeness.  Something about this year is a little different.  I don't know if it's having my Spring Break turned around or the grueling pace of the school year.  But here I find myself on May 1st.  MayDay!  And holy crap it's half-way through Spring.  Today was gorgeous, and except for the fact that my allergies were kicking.  I did all sorts of warm weather things, walk casually through the Farmer's Market, go get cheap gas in the next town.  I even bought a Spring dress.  I'm wearing it to a Kentucky Derby party next weekend, in case you were wondering, fans.  Later on I made a delicious lemon curd pie!  It's a little runny but it tasted really great.  And I had an awesome pie helper who told me I was a hero for making such a good pie.  Tomorrow I start a Walking contest with my school.  My team, the Weary Wolves, are trying to take it by storm.

So yeah, at some point yesterday I remembered I hadn't updated my blog.  Even though every time I think about updating I think...Didn't I just do that?  From now on I only write my thoughts' thoughts in Italics.  Cause really, when you think about it this whole thing is a type of inner monologue.  So, the italics indicates inner inner monologue.  Tangent over.  I was going to update my blog tonight, which I am doing, write an IEP and catch up on other work related things.  Then, I found out the media was announcing that Osama Bin Laden had been killed.  And now, now I've got a lot on my mind grapes.  I don't know what to think and I'm not really prepared to write about it here.  But, I'm slightly hesitant.  Not as paranoid as my sister but unwilling to whole heartedly believe anything is true.  The deepness is killing me.

Segue to today's question:  What is/was your favorite subject in school? It's hard for me to say but my favorite class in high school was Humanities which was an interdisciplinary class that only Seniors could take.  It was the art, history, english, music mega combo.  But yeah, all those subjects were my favorite and I always loved music.  In fact, I'm going to post some more music on this.  I fell in love with this song a couple months ago.  Then I heard it on the radio two mornings ago.  I think the album is being released soon and yay!  It feels right tonight blogosphere.   

A la prochaine!