Sunday, January 31, 2010

never enough time

My grandmother died today. Lung cancer and it came on quickly; I learned about it one week ago. My mom and her sister were there; my uncles were in the area. They have been together all week. I had planned on seeing her this summer, had steeled myself to the fact that that would be the last time I would get to see her. Things don't always work out. But, she lived her life where she wanted and in the way she wanted. Although the sickness took her more quickly than any of us anticipated, it also meant she never had to compromise on her quality of life. That is admirable.

I asked my mom if my grandmother had said what she wanted for her funeral. Only that she wanted to be cremated. Apparently my grandfather's ashes have been sitting in the closet for 10 years and she left instructions on how she wanted them scattered. My uncle suggested they mix the ashes and scatter them together. This is not what she would have wanted(It was a complicated marriage), and my mom and I laughed at how mad she'd be at all of us if we did that to her. No instead she told my mom that she wanted Bill (my grandfather) to be scattered in the ocean, and she wanted to be scattered on the beach... because she can't swim.

Saturday, January 30, 2010

party trick

Salsa is my party trick and it's a good one, I've been getting requests, as in "You're invited to my birthday party, but you can't come unless you bring salsa." And she was serious. I was late and got an angry call because a co-worker's husband whom I had made salsa for as a thank you for the use of their truck, refused to eat anything until I showed up with the salsa. Someone else was reminiscing about eating salsa YEARS ago (I mean like 15) at my house growing up.

It's good to have skills. And I like it because it's easy. Especially since acquiring the food processor (oh, how I love thee).

But, like many things I make I don't actually have a recipe. I mean, I know how to make it, but there's no set proportions. If I were to guess it would look something like this:

1 bunch cilantro: washed, trimmed and chopped as finely as possible (food processor)
tomatoes 7-10 chopped (I chop a few in the food processor and then the rest by hand)
1 small/med onion chopped as finely as possible
1 jalapeno: seeded and again chopped as finely as possible

All of those are about the right amount of ingredients, the rest is to taste.
lime juice: fresh squeezed 2 or 3 limes
salt
pepper
garlic powder

and two secret ingredients
beer (it doesn't usually matter what type, and this can be omitted if there will be little ones eating)
pace picante sauce

mess with the proportions until it tastes right.
That's it and you too can impress your friends.

Posts: 7 of 319
Days skipped: 1

this is really yesterday's post

A brief interaction from my 5th period class.

Student 1: "Yo, Ms. K, how come Kyle gets to pick a song and you've never ever once let me pick one."

Me: "Well, obviously that means I must like Kyle better than you."

Student 1: "Ms. K, that's cold."
Kyle (simultaneously): "Ha, she likes me better."

Student 2 (sweet, beautiful, wonderful girl at the back of the room): "I thought you hated all of us equally."

They obviously don't have a good handle on who I am.

Posts: 6 of 319
Days skipped: 1

Thursday, January 28, 2010

I wrote for six hours today,















but none of it was fun, but I finally feel almost confident about entry 1 of my national boards. I hate them, they are hell, however this picture, taken January 2nd in the Columbia Gourge is, at least pretty, and all I can muster up right now. I do have the idea for the next actual post, if I ever get around to it.

Posts: 6 of 319
Days skipped: 0

Wednesday, January 27, 2010

a pleasant observation

The days are getting noticably longer and there have been three dry mostly sunny days in a row, which is good because an hour outside walking along the river is the only thing keeping me sane this week. That's all for today. (Yes, it counts too.)

Posts: 5 of 319
Days Skipped: 0

Tuesday, January 26, 2010

new student

I realized sometime last year that I had been teaching a long time (Not like decades long, I teach with a woman who has been teaching for 36 years, that's 6 years longer than I've been alive. I find that CRAZY, and can't imagine doing this job for that long, I can't imagine having that sort of endurance. She's even still a good teacher. She drives me bat-shit-crazy, but I don't fault her intentions or abilities... but I digress).

Six and a half years is a long time right? It feels like it, I glance at kids out of the corner of my eye and see a student I'm sure I know. On second glance, not only am I looking intently at a complete stranger, but the student I'm sure I recognize was actually in my class as a seventh grader four years ago, 2,500 miles away. I called a student by the wrong name for almost a month this year because she looked like someone I had five years ago. It is more than a little unnerving.

On the upside, teaching special education for a few years allows me to recognize patterns, and more often than not my intuition about students proves correct. For example, I have a tiny study hall/study skills class, about six or seven kids. One wandered in yesterday with a new schedule. Now, a new kid half way through the senior year is a bit strange for me, I'm the only teacher working with the special ed seniors and so I know all names and most faces. This one I'd never seen before, he claimed he had been at the school almost a year and was a senior. This was curious, and I knew nothing about him.

Then, as I listened to his inconsistent and slightly unnatural speech patterns, watched his insistence on sitting as close to the front as possible, and saw him evaluating the continual (they both even had a thing for Swedish death metal) hatter and affectionate banter of his classmates, it occurred to me, I did know this kid. His diagnostic doppelganger was a student of mine three years ago and though not every kid on the autism spectrum is alike, there are some distinctive markers. This friendly, slightly troll looking kid, hit almost all of them within thirty minutes of class.

I checked with our department head today, and yep, I'm right. Special ed teachers can sense their own, It's like gay-dar, but with special ed kids. See, I do have some sort of talent. Go me!

Post: 4 of 319
Days Skipped: 0

Monday, January 25, 2010

pretty picture post


Since I spent the evening at a "shitty basketball game"... the coach's words not mine, although even I know it wasn't pretty, I didn't have time to write, but this still counts as a post. Because I say so and I get to make the rules, it's my silly blog, so there.

I took this picture outside of the Portland Art Meseum in early November. It was the outside instillation of the China Design Now exhibit. Which was a super fun combination of graphic art, architecture, fashion and design elements.

Post: 3 of 319
Skipped Days: 0

Sunday, January 24, 2010

all sorts of productive

Fueled by the ambitious goal setting of yesterday morning, or perhaps the near sixty-degree January temperatures, I was all sorts of productive yesterday.

Here is what I accomplished yesterday:

1. Mundane things, dishes, dog, laundry as well as…

2. Painted some more of the study…. Now an observant reader or anyone who has been to or seen pictures of my house might question this. It is done, that fabulous pink I love so much right? Alas no, all but one wall has been painted since early summer, but there had previously been a set of attached bookshelves that had dissuaded me from finishing. I convinced my parents to move this shelf on their most recent trip up here and it freed up the wall (ugly blue, not pink black or white), it also gave a much more user-friendly space. So, yesterday I put two coats of black and white, leaving room for an approximately 12 –inch stripe of pink and the room will be done. (ugh, except the baseboards…all through the house).

3. Pulled up decaying tomato and pepper plants from the garden.

4. Cut back a bunch of dried out perennials. I’m not sure if this is what you’re supposed to do, but hopefully springtime will find new growth in those same spots. Or are you supposed to just let them wither away?

5. Did a cursory check and removal of invasive bad guys black berry and English ivy growing along the fence line.

6. I pruned a few trees whose limbs were infringing upon the personal space of the power lines in front of my house.

7. I cleaned the gutters at the front of the house.

A note about 6 & 7: over the summer I purchased a 10 foot ladder, and while it is incredibly handy to do things like prune trees and clean gutters, the thing is a beast, and heavy enough that it’s hard to manipulate. Pair that with the approximately 18 inches of space between the monster rhododendron bushes and my house and it was more than a little difficult to get to the gutters to clean them out. At the point when I had the ladder stuck, upside down and was swearing and yanking at it, (all the time watching the power lines over my head and wondering what would happen if I were to accidentally hit them with this 10 foot metal behemoth) the mail woman drove by. She smiled sweetly and said, “it looks like you have a project on your hands.”

Oh yes, I felt like a competent homeowner at that moment.

Post: 2 of 319
Days skipped: 0

Saturday, January 23, 2010

Existential crisis, crisis of faith and Rolling Stone

Of late, my attitude has been awful. Really, really bad. Spiraling inward, my frustration and anger have been paralyzing. So, I decided, I’m over it. The issues that were bothering me have not gone away. They’re still here, but I’m tired of letting the anger have any power. One of my core beliefs is that happiness is a choice, the world has power and influence, but we have the ability to choose.

So, I am currently on day three of my self-prescribed attitude adjustment and as I drank coffee and read O Magazine (more on that in a second) I realized that I haven’t written anything in months.

Not just in this particular vehicle, but anything at all. Writing centers me. It is also crucial to my own definition of self (if you surf you are a surfer right, the same is true of writing). As I think about it, I realize that I can judge my own level of contentment by how prolific my own writing is (quality is not part of this particular gauge), it is not surprising that I posted as often as I did over the summer. Not only did I have more time, but I actually felt like writing. I actually felt like creating and felt like examining the world.

An interesting experiment would be to see if by making myself write, I could maintain a more positive attitude. Writing could be the tool…(on a metacognitive note, this is interesting to me because this is not the post I sat down to write, didn’t consider this until I put myself in front of the computer.) So, over the summer I wanted to post every day. I did much better when I was alone, my parents came and it got harder, mostly because I allowed myself to be annoyed by them. As I just said, when I’m annoyed, I don’t write. But, I’ve also been thinking about the idea of will power, in terms of weight loss, but what about will power in terms of self-improvement. I’ve also been thinking about resolutions and goals for this upcoming year. (I always write some down just to be able to see them and help me keep things in perspective). I have not done this yet.

So, here’s what I’ve come up with, (honestly, sitting here in the last 20 minutes) this year, I will focus on writing, as a tool. Some of it I will post here although I know not all of it will be fit for public consumption. But, let’s put some numbers on this. I would like to see if I can write everyday. I’d like to see if I can post almost as often. It is January 23. There are 342 days left this year. But, I know I will not/cannot post on everyone of them. So, I will give myself 23 skip days, meaning I am going to attempt to post 319 times between now and the end of the year. Notice, I’m counting number of posts, not days. Let’s be realistic, it’s one of the hallmarks of good goal setting.

I know this is not an original goal, but at this moment it feels good.

So, here goes:
Post: 1 of 319
Days skipped: 0

Oh, and I’m going to have to save my Rolling Stone rant. But, it seems I’ll have plenty of time to get it done.