Almost September

Liberto and I went to the mall this morning to get me a few tops for work, then stopped at Petsmart to try the Jumbo size doggie-diapers for Pete. I'd already bought medium, but they were too small. In addition to incontinence, he has some bleeding. There's nothing we can do. The vet already offered to do surgery on his bladder, but I didn't see any benefit since he's already an old man in dog years, and would be an at-risk patient. The Jumbos don't fit very well either. Although they're marketed for incontinence, I think they must mean incontinence in excited puppies. We've purchased plastic at the hardware store and have lined the carpets in all his likely rest areas. I know that people less patient than we are would have hastened him on to doggie-heaven, but we believe that as long as he's not suffering and is still eating and having fun, it would be morally wrong.

I convinced Liberto to join my gym, the one near our house, in addition to the one he already belongs to downtown. I thought it would be fun if we could go together on the weekends. We went this afternoon for about an hour.

We got a three-line postcard from Shawn in today's mail saying he'd arrived at Ft. Jackson. There was an address printed on the postcard, with a statement in big letters saying "This is NOT your soldier's address." In other words, "Don't write back to this address." His car still sits in the driveway. He forgot to leave us the key. It's locked. I hope we don't have to move it for any reason.

We were saddened by the passing of Sen. Ted Kennedy, and watched his funeral this evening. I met him once in 1970, at a Democratic convention, or primary, or rally, I don't remember exactly. I had graduated from college in May that year and moved to Massachusetts for my first newspaper job. The bureau chief decided that we would drive to Boston for the convention. I remember going through a receiving line, being introduced to Mr. Kennedy by the Bureau chief, and shaking hands. He was just starting out as a politician then, so I had much less reason to admire him then as I do now. Over the years, he never let his wealth stand in the way of feeling genuinely compassionate for the less fortunate, especially people without access to health care. Hearing re-runs of his speech at one of the Presidential Conventions way, way back, I'm in awe of the way he pounded the podium with his fist and insisted that the cost of his son's medical work would bankrupt a normal family and therefore, it was imperative that this country develop universal health care. What I loved is his consistency in fighting for the needs of the poor all those years. Unlike many politicians, he never flip-flopped on his views, depending on which way the political winds were blowing. Furthermore, with all that wealth, he could have spent his life as a socialite rather than contributing to his country.

Tom Hanks wouldn't have complained

I had a traumatic root canal on Wednesday. Oddly, I have more of an issue with novacain than dental work itself. Even though I know it's better than the alternative, I despise the sting of the needle, the warm fluid moving in, and then, inevitably, I get a nasty adrenaline rush---even when they don't use ephinephrine in the cocktail. For this appointment, I brought an Ipod and headphones, hoping to retreat to my Happy Place or astral-project into some other dimension while the doctor did her work. She had injected two shots of novacain while I concentrated on pretending I was on the beach listening to Elton John. Suddenly, I received the literal shock of my life as the needle by accident tripped some nerve and made me jump so high I knocked the needle out of her hand. But that was just the beginning. Soon, the adrenaline effect began, and my head started pounding. One side of my forehead was pulsating as though I had a migraine. I reported this to her. She took my blood pressure and it was through the roof. But since I was sitting there, all numbed up, she felt it was okay to proceed. If I had left, I would have had to work up my courage to come back. For the next hour and some, I lay back trying to block out the sounds of the drill and the horrible feeling of my heart pounding. How much of this was the adrenaline effect and how much was the sheer horror of going through the process, I don't know. I've had one or two root canals before, but this one was particularly horrendous. I was so so happy to walk out that door at 6 p.m. I phoned Liberto and told him I'd changed my mind and didn't feel like going to the mall after all, that I was coming right home.

I haven't written in this blog for several weeks because I've been so busy, with now school underway and always something going on. I agreed to be a hospital/homebound tutor for a boy would have been in my 9th grade comp/lit class this fall, but was diagnosed with cancer a week before school started. I was so upset to hear about what seems like a terrible injustice that I happily accepted the position of being his tutor. I want to help connect him with school and school life so that maybe it will be a bright spot during his months of chemo. He is a sweet, smart, polite and delightful boy. I'm glad I'm involved with his education.

Shawn left Monday morning for Basic Training. Paul drove him to the recruitment center at 10:00 a.m., where he took a shuttle to Jacksonville, FL for intake, and was then be sent to Ft. Jackson, South Carolina. It's all kind of weird. We said goodbye early Monday morning before I left for work. Then I came home, and he was gone. The bedroom was empty. But his car remains in the driveway because he couldn't take that with him.

Rainy Saturday

Congratulations to me for completing the first full week of the new school year! So far, it's going well. To my surprise, the school gave me and a handful of other teachers a pleasant little bonus check for having perfect attendance last year. That always brightens one's day.

The only drama occurred when the outside door handle of the student restroom fell off while a girl was inside. She was pounding and screaming, so one of the guys---who may have had prior experience with B & E---was at the door astutely applying his credit card, trying to slide the lock open. I lost the attention of all the students, of course, as several hovered around the door yelling at the girl, another was sent to the main building to find a custodian, and I tried in vain to buzz the front office. It's not connected yet, however. They can intercom me, but I can't intercom back. A custodian finally appeared 10 minutes after the student-runner had alerted her about the problem. She then radioed Maintenance. Since there was nothing anyone could do until maintenance arrived, I closed the door to the restroom hallway and demanded the class to get back to what we were doing. Ten minutes later, the door opened, and the trapped student appeared, having been released by Maintenance.

During the next block, I was just about to "share" some of the scanned student work via the projector when the bulb blew out. I was using my own LCD since the school hasn't yet installed my permanent one. Those bulbs cost several hundred dollars, and I was reluctant to spend that much for my teaching. To my surprise, the school unearthed an LCD projector from somewhere and gave it to me the next day.

Week before last, a young man who graduated from the high school a decade ago was killed in Afghanistan. His mother is one of the middle school teachers. The Marines are very loyal to their fellow soldiers and Richmond Hill is a small town, so a big fallen hero's welcome was planned, beginning last Wednesday when his body arrived in Savannah and was escorted by motorcade from the airport to a Richmond Hill Funeral Home. The streets were lined with flags and people for miles. All the teachers turned out, as well as townspeople. Liberto and I went to the calling hours last night. Even though I hadn't known the young man, I felt tremendous empathy for his family, especially his mother, a fellow teacher. Soon I, too, will be the mother of a soldier. The line of callers was so long that it took two-and-a-half hours for us to get from the outside of the building to the family members who were receiving.

Shawn is leaving for Ft. Jackson on August 25. During the nine weeks of Basic Training, he will not be allowed visitors, phone calls, or emails. There will be one Visitor's Day just before graduation. Then, he will be shipped out to a destination now unknown.

Saturday night fishing at Tybee

Although I used these photos on Facebook, I'm also displaying them here. I went to the beach with the boys on Saturday evening. Liberto snagged many fish, but they all got away before he could reel them in. Bite by bite, they ate his bait until he had none left on the hook. They were jumping in the air right in front of us, but none of sufficient size could be caught. I guess they've had a lot of practice eluding fisherpeople in those shallow waters. He did catch two baby fish, as seen in the photo above, which he threw back.

Crazy days

On Tuesday, the roller coaster ride began. The administration decided to mandate some new room re-assignments, the goal of which was to get the math and science teachers on the same hallway and to give individual rooms to teachers who'd been there the longest.

At the end of the school year last spring, you may recall, I was reassigned from my original room to another room. I have the sneaking suspicion that J., the teacher who shared my room, and who has OCD and some other issues with mood swings, did not want to share the room with me for whatever reason, and complained secretly to the AP, who arranged the move---although the AP claimed it had to do with scheduling. So many teachers are floaters that it's quite a juggling act to schedule classes and have rooms available when so many are shared by two teachers. I moved out of my original room with J., and a young teacher named E. moved in.

On the first teacher pre-planning day, I was just settling into the new room, to which I'd hauled books and papers for three days at the end of the school year, when the AP came in and told the teacher I now shared the room with, K., that she was being re-assigned to one of the new portables outside the main building so that she could have her own room. I could tell that K., who has worked there longer than I, was not too happy. She walked out to the portable, returned, and reported that it was small and dirty and ugly. Meanwhile, the AP had moved a science teacher to one of the portables and re-assigned J., my former "room mate" to the science teacher's room. J. was angry to have been moved rather than sharing the room with E. But then the science teacher, after moving to the portable and standing in it for five minutes, pitched a fit, saying it hurt her allergies or migraines or something. So the AP decided to move her back to the original room, take J. out, and move her to the room where I now was, as K. was being sent to the portable. But K. got mad at being moved, and she had been there longer, so in the end, the AP decided to move me to one side of the new portable, and J. to the other side.

I was filled with trepidation after hearing K's description of the portable classroom. But when I walked over to inspect it, it didn't look bad at all. Either the cleaning crew got to it first or K. was exaggerating. It's new and fresh and fairly large. Fortunately, J. and I have two individual classrooms with separate doors and separate stairsteps leading to our rooms. There are even two restrooms in the middle corridor which separates the two classrooms. My very own restroom!





















The room is so new, in fact, that it hasn't been wired for internet. They say it will be taken care of soon, but it makes me beyond insane not to have instant access. The room does not have a built-in LCD projector yet either, although it's in the works. But I dusted off my own personal LCD which I purchased a few years ago when I worked at Groves, which offered zero equipment, and set it up, so I can show visuals and powerpoints.

Physically, moving everything into the new classroom was horrible. Although I had a lot of help from students and male faculty who could hoist heavy things onto their shoulders, I was dripping rivers of sweat after walking back and forth in the hot sun carrying my books and files from the main building to the portable. When my naturally wavy hair gets wet or sweaty, it curls wildly in weird directions. By the end of the day, I looked barbaric.

In addition, my schedule was suddenly altered. I now have Planning during first block. I'd originally been assigned 3rd block planning, which I think is the best because it overlaps lunch and you're free to eat whenever you want. On the other hand, if you have a third block class instead of Planning, you have to interrupt class to send students for lunch and get them re-focused after they've been gone for half an hour.

For a few days this week, I felt very unsettled by the new room and new schedule---who moved my cheese?---but once I got the furniture and desks into the classroom, I thought it looked just fine. Today, I began to see the advantages of having my own room, as opposed to sharing. I don't have to float to another classroom carrying a basket full of papers, all the while knowing that I'll inevitably have forgotten something back in my own room. Now I have all three classes in the same room, so I can always access my own things. I can also write something on the board and know it will stay there because another teacher won't erase it for her class.

In addition, I began to see the advantages of first block planning. It removes some of the early morning pressure inherent in rushing to get there, signing in, getting the room set up and the papers out, and being prepared for a mob of students who need to be "engaged" from bell to bell.

My mood swung from one end of the pendulumn to the other, and by today, I was happy with the new room and the schedule. Am I happy that J., a known freon addict, is in my class for the second time? That's another story for next time.

Heebie-jeebies

Yes, I've got a little bit of the h.j.'s about starting the new school year next week. First, there's the change in routine. Now I'll have to arise in the near-dark again at 5:30. No more late night movies or watching "Property Virgins" at 11:30p.m. No more interesting dreams about people, places, and things in the universe outside the classroom; now my sleeping mind will be flooded with dreams about classrooms, hand-outs, and broken copy machines. Then there's the change from the leisurely summer pace back to the rush-rush. In addition, the larger issues loom before me: what will my new students be like? Will there be any hyperactive, show-stealing, posturing kids whose mission is to stir up drama and draw attention from the other classmates? I took a peek at the class lists on PowerTeacher and my jaw dropped when I saw the name of a guy I've already had twice before! He's an 11th or 12th grader now, about 19 years old. I think his unwillingness to do the work is a cover for some reading disabilities.

I'm also nervous about teaching "Basic Reading" for the first time. The chair asked me to teach one section of it so she wouldn't have to do three sections herself, which is understandable. She warned me that these 9th graders are harder to control that the regular ones. They can't/won't/don't like to read, so they disrupt instead.

I'm nervous about re-joining the society of teachers that I work with. Most of them are in a quite different stage of life than I am, preoccupied with babies, diets, and nights out with the girls. Been there, done that. Tired of it. I'm more into my family, my husband-as-my-best friend, the wonderful company of my sons, the pleasure of long-term friends, the joys of being at home with a good book or movie on a Friday night. I get along with most of the other teachers, in a surface sort of way, but have little desire to see any of them outside of the school day. I recently went to a gathering of the female teachers from my former school, Groves, and feel much more in tune with those women. They are more mature. Many have grandchildren!


Oh, to add to my anxiety list, on Thursday, I broke a permanent bridge, and have an appointment to see the dentist tomorrow. Although Liberto and I have not one but two dental insurances and a flexible spending account for medical and dental, I'm terrified that it will cost a fortune. Dental work ain't cheap, and I've got a mind to write to Obama to point out that something should be done about dental health for our nation, as well as medical. Even good dental insurance has a $1,000 a year cap. That's good for about two x-rays and a cleaning. One of the reasons Shawn is joining the Army is that they'll take care of his medical needs and his teeth. Not having had money or insurance for a long time, he needs thousands of dollars worth of dental work. Even if he had a dental plan right now, the $1,000 a year cap would prevent any real improvement.

The other possibility tomorrow is that the dentist can just re-cement it in as it is and send me on my way. I have it shoved into place for the time being with some poli-grip and I try to chew on the other side.

Shawn now has a reservation for the helicopter repair division of the military. He is leaving tomorrow for an initiation at Ft. Jackson, which will last two days. They show the recruits around, give them a physical, and put them in the "hot seat" for questioning. If he passes all that, he can officially sign up for the six-year stint, and he will begin four-month basic training on Sept. 23, at either a base in Virginia or Mississippi. Maybe that's another reason for my heebie-jeebies; there's about to be a huge change in his life. Ours too.

I'm nervous about Pete too. So far, he hasn't suffered at all, but he's getting thinner and isn't eating as much as he used to. I worry about him.

Paul and I went to the gym today, and I felt a little bit more centered after a good work out. One thing I did get out of that Covey training last June was to write down my Quadrant II activities on my calendar, as an appointment. Once it's written down, it seems more like an official directive, so I go and do it. For some reason, that has worked. For the past three weeks, I've been going to the gym three times a week and have stuck to it. Next week, I have it written down for Tuesday and Thursday, after school. That will be the real test, to see if I keep going and not let it slide because of other "more important" things. One of the teachers at my school works out at 4:30 a.m. every day, so she can come to school invigorated. If I can drop in for half an hour at 4 PM twice a week, I'll be doing well.