Category Archives: Uncategorized

Letter from a parent

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This is from the woman who made me cry yelling at me a few weeks ago…

“Hi
First I am sorry if I made you cry but I’m sure you can understand my situation. I cry too, because it’s just me doing it all, and it is frustrating.
I wanted to thank you for helping B and for being so understanding. Too many teacher are apathetic and are unwilling to put out the effort ( then why teach? ). I don’t think they see that the effort they make can change a life. Thank you! because you did make the effort and it has eased Bri’s life immeasureably. She tells me about the fun she has in your room and about being the “8th period class”… honestly she is eating it up.
You know my back ground, I believe any time spent on a kid is never wasted time. You have made an impact that will have a lasting effect. Thank you. Now if you could just give lessons to some of the other teachers, and administrators at that school. Oh well ( heavy sigh…) Know that you are changing the world one person at a time but that person will go on and change the lives of others. Pretty amazin’

Thank you so very much- N

P.S. Coffee some time?

PPS keep this letter for those days when you forget why you teach…so you will rememeber the remarkable thing you are doing.”

I’ll keep the letter.

This student is chronically ill and has had a miserable time trying to keep up with school work in between hospital trips. She is also a very depressed cutter from a poor family and she has to work to help pay the rent. In between her job and trying to catch up on school work she has been starting to make herself sick again. I told her to just not worry about it till after Christmas when things slow down at work cause I have faith she can catch up then. I think that’s why her mom sent the letter.

Hey wait… I have 5 free minutes?!

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I would like to make this in-depth. We’ll see how much I manage in the next few minutes.

I’m such a roller coaster. My life is great and wonderful and incredibly frustrating so I’m up and down more than I like. For example: this Saturday I started out in a terrible mood for no specific reason. I was just feeling horrible and awful. I was assured that I wasn’t actually taking it out on Noah, but I was sure being pissy near him. *sigh* Then I got a call from my beloved stand in mom, ditenebre (did that code work?) saying she had comp tickets for Dickens Fair that we could have for this weekend. Originally I didn’t think we would be able to go on Saturday given the list of things we wanted to get done in the day, but she wouldn’t be there on Sunday so we decided to make it on Saturday despite the inconvenience and my general pissiness. I decided to wear my corset cause… well, I could. And it was an attempt to feel dressy cause I don’t get to do that much these days.

We were both so happy we went. The day there was wonderful. I got to be reminded that there are actual real live groups of people who like me! Dude!! I feel very isolated most of the time lately and it is hard to remember that people like me. At Dickens we couldn’t walk 3 minutes without someone being ecstatic to see me and often jumping up and down before hugging me hard. My self esteem drastically needed that. I felt happier than I have been in a while, and I haven’t exactly been miserable lately. A hot girl at Dark Garden played dress up with me and I ended up leaving with a sheer gorgeous black shirt that sorta barely covers me, but is entirely flattering in the process. And hey–said hot girl dressed and undressed me several times. I so win. Many hot and lovely boys flirted with me like crazy. I very sadly had to turn down the many kisses offered because my cold sore isn’t completely healed yet, but I was quite flattered that I was having to turn them down constantly. 🙂 Oh baby the flirting rocked. 🙂 When I finally got to Fezziwig’s I was passed from boy to boy to boy and that rocked. I did have it reaffirmed to myself that it isn’t that I miss dancing that much, I miss dancing with terpsichoros. He taught me how to dance and I can follow his lead better than any one else’s. I like dancing with other people, quite a bit even. But with him I feel light and graceful and beautiful. Thank you honey for introducing me to dancing. I will never be able to repay the debt I owe you.

So many other lovely and wonderful people. Miss barelyproper did my hair and I left it in all weekend and was thrilled. And and and… too many people to name. I love you all. I was so happy to see you. I was asked if we would be returning and told that as a bribe people could arrange comp tickets to get me there. 🙂 I am strongly considering it. One day may not have been enough. I am so grateful that ditenebre gave me the opportunity to go. Thank you. I really needed that.

And then on Sunday we got a Christmas tree!!! That rocked. It was a serious pain to put up and it still seriously leans. *grin* It’s as non-straight as I am! Then Noah’s dad called. … Intimidating much? It was a very interesting conversation. He went a long way towards repairing the anger I was feeling in his direction and expressed a great deal of support for my position with regards to Noah’s mom. I’m grateful for that. He is right that I don’t really understand his position, but I’m glad he is willing to understand how hard I have worked to get away from people like his wife. That made me feel much better, which in turn relieves some of the stress between Noah and I right now. Yay all the way around.

I have been forgetful like crazy lately and seriously beating myself up about it. But I’m trying really hard to get that under control. Cause despite my negative self talk, I am smart. I am capable. I am good at most of the things that matter in my life. I’m just also very overwhelmed. It’s ok that I make mistakes when i’m massively overwhelmed. 10 days till Christmas break.

Oh! And my AP (assistant principal) observed me yesterday. She had only positive things to say so far. We haven’t had the official sit down meeting, but when we walked past each other she stopped to note that I have really great classroom control and excellent relations with the kids. She specifically said, “You are great at noticing when someone gets off task and getting them back on track without it being a disruption of the overall class and the kids take it well which shows that you have a very positive relationship with them in general.” Still grinning about that. Yay!

And despite feeling like I was showing up with no plan or ability to be on task today I have managed to get everything together and organized and absolutely set for the next two days in time to finally update my lj. 🙂 Go me. And I found time to go get lunch with my buddy and I went over the entries for the MLK Jr contest and submitted my official judging ballot. Damn I’m on task today

Have I mentioned lately that I love my friends? And that I love my husband even more than all of my friends combined? We’ve been talking a lot about my insecurities (you know–all those things that live in my head and really aren’t about him despite the fact that they inadvertently affect our relationship?) and he is just so amazing. He is supportive and tolerant and he is getting WAY better at standing up for his own boundaries as he supports me. I couldn’t be prouder of him. 🙂 Yay. Ok, still feeling overwhelmed and that is scary. But my life is really good.

Orphans Christmas

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I’m about to be late for work, so consider this a placeholder invitiation.

If you are seeing this you are on my invite list for being welcome in our home on Christmas Day. This isn’t going to be a huge party, but I’m really into Christmas and I plan to sit around watching Christmas movies and eating yummy food and generally basking in having my first non-sucky Christmas in years and years. 🙂

You are welcome to join me. I am going to request that if you want to come over you HAVE to let me know. Maybe only the morning of, but please don’t just show up and expect us to feed you/entertain you. That would be pressure I am not ok with having on Christmas. Thank you for your consideration. (Maybe details to follow…)

Disturbing trends and dodged bullets.

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I am soooo tired all the time that we have been going to bed earlier and earlier. This means we are waking up at 4 am more often. I’m really not thrilled with this process. Although we both love the time to sit and talk and cuddle it is getting ridiculous that I am falling asleep at 7pm. If I continue the trend I will be going to bed as soon as I get home from work at 4 and getting up at midnight. Hey! Maybe I can have a nightlife again! *shake head*

We had dinner with Tom last night. He wants to borrow a helmet and we certainly have extras sitting around. It was an interesting experience. I had sseveral uncharitable thoughts, which I won’t share because many of his friends read this, but overall my impression was relief that I ended that relationship. We really weren’t right for each other. I still think he is a good person and I like him, but we are such an incredibly bad match. In the course of the conversation the only question he asked about my life in any way was, “So, what subject do you teach?” which is about as impersonal as it gets. I have barely spoken to him in the past two years. All he asked was what subject I teach? Granted, I didn’t exactly get into nitty gritty details about all of his personal life, but I asked about his family and mutual friends, and his business, and experiences we used to share in order to get a sense of what he has been doing with his life. He really doesn’t care what has happened in my life. I don’t hate him for it and I don’t think he is even a bad person, but his lack of empathy is really something I don’t handle well in a personal relationship. When we got home I looked at Noah and hugged him fiercely. He was the first person to really want to see me. He still wants to know more about me than anyone else does.

God I’m grateful. For once, maybe I made the right call.

I need an icon of Noah. Hmmmmm.

Teaching ups and downs.

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Last night when I was calling my no-show kids’ parents I talked to one father about his kid not being here. I mentioned that I knew he had been upset lately about the court case he was involved in and I didn’t want to pressure him and… Yeah. The dad got really upset and said he knew nothing about it. The kid had told me that it was something he was worried about talking about and I thought, “Oh shit… his dad doesn’t know?!” So I freaked out thinking I had violated his trust, I have gotten him in trouble, OH GOD this is going to be bad. I fretted all night long.

Today he tells me in class that he needs to talk to me after school about the situation. I felt like shit for the rest of the day. After school I took him outside and started apologizing profusely. Then he very stiltingly and haltingly let me know that when he gets really stressed out and uncomfortable sometimes he has trouble admitting what is really going on and sometimes he tells lies and… I interrupted him and said, “Wait… you were lying about the court case?” “Uhm…. yeah” He turned bright red and was visibly shaking. I started laughing hysterically and fell over backwards. I thanked him for relieving my guilt and explained that I have been feeling awful for a while. He said this is the first time anyone has ever thanked him for lying. I told him that him lying about this was better than me betraying a major confidence.

He came back in and settled in to work in a good mood and made a lot of progress. 🙂

I have had about a dozen parents tell me that they are deeply grateful that I am holding their kids after school so they can raise their grades. I’m feeling really good about the effort.

Mostly me babbling for myself cause I like records.

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The past few days have been quite a roller coaster of emotions. Dude. I realized sometime last night while feeling quite depressed and upset while snuggling up to a napping Noah that my stomach had been hurting ridiculously badly. Hey wait, my stomach pain seems to be related to severe stress. Not always, but often enough. Then I started thinking about Jaguar’s comment. Time to set some damn priorities.

So I got up and sorted my grading into: not grading, grading over Christmas break, and I should do it now. The do it now pile is quite diminuative and I did most of it in about 30 minutes last night.

I decided that I could let guilt over Noah’s family eat me from the inside out or I can recognize that they have had problems for decades longer than I have known them and this so isn’t my problem. He is going to make whatever decision about them that he feels is appropriate. I don’t have to like it. I am feeling more confident that he won’t force me to have unhealthy contact though. Yay for supportive partners!

I’m getting my feet under me with comp and lit so I don’t feel as unhappy in that quarter. My unit on A Raisin in the Sun is shaping up and I will be doing the next two units over Christmas break so I don’t have to stress about it during school time. Really this is all good news. My goal is to work the first week during the day and take the second week OFF. Damn the kids. 😉

And I’m out of BTSA. I fucked up on paperwork so all of those awful trainings I have done so far? Yeah… useless. I will have to do them again next year. But, I get a lot more time to myself this year. I don’t know if it was the best call or not, but I’m glad I did it. I need more time to myself right now.

And this weekend I want to decorate for Christmas! It’ll all work out. I have faith. And that Noah guy is still the bestest thing ever.

Mmmmm in-laws…

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So, I went to Texas. We flew into Houston and rented a car and drove to Austin. Did I mention that we arrived at about midnight and didn’t get on the road until one in the morning? We got to Austin and into our hotel at four in the morning. I managed to be remarkably cheerful throughout this entire journey and given my fierce need for predictable sleep this was nearly a miracle. We fitfully slept. Come morning we woke up and stumbled over towards Noah’s brothers house. I did my best to hang back and keep my mouth shut but eventually I ended up talking to his brother’s friends and his brothers a bit. I did my best to say little to his parents. By the end of the day I found I was thrilled to have met his brother’s friends and I think they are totally spiffy people.

The Friday after Thanksgiving we went back to his brother’s house and had Fat Tammies for breakfast. Holy cow were they good. Mashed potatoes and hash browns wrapped around meat. Oh Baby. I spent more time trying to talk to the siblings and hide from the parents, but that got harder as there were fewer people in the house. I did have a conversation about school systems and book worthiness with the parents but I quite consciously kept my comments very limited. When his parents left we had a good time talking more with the siblings and I think my sister-in-law completely rocks. At some point during the day she looked at Noah’s brother and said, “Finally I have someone to talk to while you tell stupid jokes.” *grin* I couldn’t have said it better! She also asked if they could see my tat and I explained the story. As is fairly typical they were not overly communicative; it is a heavy sort of story. Then we drove to Huntsville to stay at his parent’s house. We all sat and talked for a bit but I went to bed at around 10 with the goal of giving his parents time with him without me. He stayed up talking to them for a couple more hours. I got to enjoy book time and talk to japlady on the phone. She says I will get used to things, I disagree at this point.

Saturday we went for a walk with his parents and younger sister after breakfast. I thought it mostly went well. On the way back I was egging his sister on telling her to get a stick and hit Noah with it while I held his hands. This resulted in his mother fiercely berating his younger sister for how she “always goes too far.” I stuck up for the sister saying that I felt the situation was mostly my fault and not his younger sister’s as I had been egging her on the whole time. This resulted in some muttering and a tirade about how I don’t understand the problem. I didn’t say anything. We ran off after that and spent a few hours with Noah’s aunt. I am SO adopting her. I adore the woman. She is fiercely funny and eccentric and very strong-minded. I have a lot of appreciation for someone who really goes their own path. We went back to his parents’ house at his mother’s insistence that we “freshen up” before dinner. Uhm, ok. But we did it. Then we had an ok dinner. By this time I had already told Noah that I should probably not say anything at all if we want to have any kind of peace.

After dinner we wanted to head to bed seeing as we needed to get up at 4. This was 9:30. His parents said they wanted to talk to him for 15 minutes and they wanted me to not be there. Oh great. Yay! They are going to bitch about my behavior! Noah says that bitching about me was only for a little while. Then it turned into a huge long thing about his mother’s culture and how no one respects it. She apparently included some bits about how she can’t be held accountable for her actions because she had a bad childhood. . . . . Yeah. Words escape me. This conversation lasted over two hours and only really ended because I walked over to the house and asked for the car keys so I could get stuff out of the trunk to finish packing. I was incredibly pissed off and I was only as vaguely calm as I was because I have amazing friends who can talk me down. I seriously thought about just leaving. He came back and was tired and didn’t really want to talk about it, but in my charming way I made it pretty clear that I wasn’t going to calm down until we did. So he sucked it up and he tried to explain the gist of the conversation. This was tough to do as he was very tired. He made it pretty clear that most of the conversation wasn’t about me, but I was still pissed that I was the impetus. Apparently I am too loud, I have too many opinions, I am rude, and I don’t give my elders proper respect. I certainly acknowledge that I am loud, no problems admitting that. I have a lot of opinions and I think everyone should. I really don’t believe I was rude on this trip. I am not in denial about the fact that I can be rude, but I was completely on best behavior on this trip and Noah agrees that I was good. And god damnit, I give people exactly as much respect as they earn. And fuck you if you think you deserve more that you aren’t getting.

Needless to say, the trip home starting at 4 am wasn’t thrilling. We talked a lot. I feel pretty safe and secure that Noah isn’t going to demand that I behave in ways which are contrary to my ethics and personal needs. It was hard to get to that point though. And our conversations in general were pretty strained and tough and made worse because we were both so tired. 🙁 I think we are doing ok though. His mother’s comment when I left the house with the keys last night was, “Ut oh, we are all in trouble now.” I resent the comment. Noah isn’t in trouble. I wanted some explanation of what was going on from Noah and he gave it to me as well as he was able. I think his dad is pretty whipped and there isn’t much point in talking to the man as long as his wife hates me because he won’t be allowed to have a decent opinion of me. And I think his mom is going to hate me no matter what. Not worth anyone being in trouble.

So I like the extended family more than I thought I would. But his parents… that’s going to be an ongoing problem. *sigh*

That was intense.

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Today I got to break up my first fight after school. I was in my classroom when a kid in the doorway casually noted that a fight was happening outside. I *ran*. When I got to the fight I jumped on top of the two boys (who were each significantly bigger than me) and did my best to wrest them apart. I didn’t succeed. It took two much bigger men to do it, but I prevented at least a few punches. I didn’t even know the kids. There was another female teacher there, she was standing 4-5 feet away yelling, “Stop.” Not terribly effective.

I took quite a few punches. My left arm hurts. Both wrists are sore and my left elbow is kind of twingy. Ow.

It was hella cool.

I still can sorta feel the adrenaline. 🙂

I was firmly admonished to *never* do that again. They said to let the boys beat one another to a pulp because, “They aren’t worth the effort.” I have mixed feelings about that assessment. I will jump in again. I could tell that one of the boys was defending himself, not trying to be aggressive. That kid deserved to have someone pulling the other guy off of him. Yeah, my arm hurts and it may hurt for a few days, but that kid was taking a serious beating and if I kept even one of those punches from landing it is worth it.

And now to toss the last minute stuff together so we can run off to the airport. Texas, here I come. (This is scarier than the fight.)

Exhausted

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This weekend Noah and I did a combined total of about 30 hours of grading. Have I mentioned lately that I SO grateful for my husband? He rocks my socks off. I can’t imagine a more generous partner. And I was at work at 6:35 this morning. And there are miles to go before I sleep. *sigh*

But I get a lovely long weekend! Oh wait. I’m meeting his family. No stress there…

Ignorance and homophobia

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My second period is a class of low skills, low functioning kids. They are in the main extremely ignorant. This class manages to bring up on a regular basis how homophobic they are and how disgusting gay people are. They also rabidly deny that they could be gay. It really isn’t that I am trying to convert anyone, but I get really angry with the barage of venom directed at anyone who is not exactly like them. I told them that they are narrowminded bigots. They argued with me until I got out the dictionary and looked up the words for them. At this point they are agreeing with the assessment.

But I am so furious. I have a really hard time being polite with people who will flat out tell me that gay people are disgusting and if they find out that someone is gay they are going to beat the crap out of them.

I have 26 weeks left to deal with this class. It feels like forever.

mmmm memeage (aka holiday wishlist)

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cortneyofeden posted this (maybe I’ll fix the lj link when I get home on my computer and maybe not) and I am wanting a break from grading so here I go.

Step One
– Make a post (public, friendslocked, filtered…whatever you’re comfortable with) to your LJ. The post should contain your list of 10 holiday wishes. The wishes can be anything at all, from simple and fandom-related (“I’d love a Snape/Hermione icon that’s just for me”) to medium (“I wish for _____ on DVD”) to really big (“All I want for Christmas is a new car/computer/house/TV.”) The important thing is, make sure these wishes are things you really, truly want.
– If you wish for real life things (not fics or icons), make sure you include some sort of contact info in your post, whether it’s your address or just your email address where Santa (or one of his elves) could get in touch with you.
– Also, make sure you post some version of these guidelines in your LJ, or link to this post (it’ll be public) so that the holiday joy will spread.

Step Two
– Surf around your friendslist (or friendsfriends, or just random journals) to see who has posted their list. And now here’s the important part:
– If you see a wish you can grant, and it’s in your heart to do so, make someone’s wish come true. Sometimes someone’s trash is another’s treasure, and if you have a leather jacket you don’t want or a gift certificate you won’t use–or even know where you could get someone’s dream purebred Basset Hound for free–do it.
You needn’t spend money on these wishes unless you want to. The point isn’t to put people out; it’s to provide everyone a chance to be someone else’s holiday elf–to spread the joy. Gifts can be made anonymously or not–it’s your call.
There are no rules with this project, no guarantees, and no strings attached. Just…wish and it might come true. Give and you might receive. And you’ll have the joy of knowing you made someone’s holiday special.

If you have done this, please leave a comment here with the link! That way I can surf around and see whose wishes I might be able to fulfill. (Yes, I’m adding the ones I see to my memories if they’re not already linked to in this post.)

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*sigh*

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A kid just sent me a document titled, “Englich project”

I can’t wait to read it…

It’s been a very weird day. My kids are very out of it and unprepared–far more so than usual. I’m bouncing my lesson plans around like mad.

Health sucks

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I’ve had occasional really bad stomach pain for a little while now. I’ve tended to try to ignore the outbreaks and treat them as if, “Well that was random–well… it’s over now,” but unfortunately they have been working on worse, not going away. When I threw up on Sunday because of the immense pain I was in that was a clue to me that I needed to deal with it pretty quickly. I skipped work on Monday and went to see the doctor. Her initial thoughts are that it could be gallstones, pancreatitis, or ulcers. I got a bunch of blood drawn and peed in a cup. First they called to assure me that I am not pregnant. Then they called to say that most of the blood tests were back and within normal ranges. So today I went in for an ultrasound. It was enh. Not a particularly traumatic experience–for which I am grateful.

Oh, and I seem to have a herpes outbreak. My first one in…. yeah. Long long time. No more kissing people for me, at least for a while. I guess that with enough stress I can break the streak of not having an outbreak in more than thirteen years. 🙁

Oh, and before the vomiting session on Sunday I had more work done on my back. So I just have massive discomfort *everywhere*.

Irritating

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I have this guy at work that I hang out with a lot. We have the same prep and his room adjoins mine. We eat together and hang out during our preps on Tuesday as the default. Today I hate him though. He is noisily eating pizza in my room and talking about how good it is.

I can’t eat today. I have to fast. I’m getting an ultrasound this afternoon (really, I’m not pregnant) and I can’t eat anything for 6 hours before it and I am in that window. He knows this. He is still eating in here.

Fucker.

What’s in a name?

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I generally won’t put my name on this journal, but some things must be said.

According to the DMV and Social Security my name is Kristine Lenora Gibbs. Wow, this is so real.

It is very odd that I feel like things are still unsettled and yet they are getting so much more comfortable. We bicker and fight more than is strictly speaking a great thing, but it seems like we are making progress. At least we don’t keep bitching about the same things. 🙂

I’m so very happy that I made this decision. Please God, let me keep this.