the sky was taking requests
so I gave one up
asking for that snowy rain mix to hit this town
and not the next
and it happened

they say the gods never answer prayers in the way you ask them
they have their own way of doing things
and that’s what we call the great mystery of life
so actual prayers are not as definite was we think they should be

the snow was minute marbles
grains of ice swept from the beaches where angels sit
sunning themselves in the land of endless sunshine
kicking around in heavenly volleyball courts
where they calculate algorithms with fingers
and demonstrate the backwards superstitions of science

the snow was minute marbles
and I collected them in my hoodie to take them home
and play a game of mancala
each brisked down from the gray umbrella ceiling
and piled up on cars and buildings
making a pre-technicolor sahara out of the world

then it passed
and the sky went sea-like again
and this sugar-coated world
with sugar-coated sidewalks
and sugar-coated treetops
looked like kids cereal
decoder ring wonder

So this is a post I was going to write about three or four days ago, but I got caught up in the world, visiting old friends and playing with my Christmas toys, and sorta let this thing slide away from me. But here it is, in a briefer package. I’ll be back to fuller form once the holidays are over-er.

Below, you will witness a series of photos taken at my grandfather’s house. They pertain to his Christmas decorating practices, and the glamor therein.

Exhibit #1: Witness the splendor of the outdoor lights. Lighted trees, spiraling lights, Santas, lines of blinking eaves. This is how my grandfather decorates the outside of the house, and it really does attract a lot of people. His house is at the top of a hill overlooking a canyon, so it sorta stands out with all the people from the city that come down to see the seasonal spectacle that is the Christmas Lights.

He’s always done this sort of decorating, which my family and I abandoned long ago. He would climb the roof and string lights all along its edge. However, age prohibits him from doing that any more. We’re glad for this. Often he’d ask the kids to help after Thanksgiving, but any more he has it done long before we even show up for that.

Exhibit #2: The Reindeer. My grandfather’s sister gave him the wooden cut out of these simple woodland creatures so, but he decided that he needed a whole sleigh of them. He quickly designed the sleigh, and set it up for lights and everything. One Christmas went by before the kids informed him that no flock of reindeer, wooded or otherwise, was complete without a Rudolph. So, the very next year we had one. See, he even has a read nose.

Exhibit #3: The Christmas Tree. My grandfather is a practical man. There is little that occurs in his daily life that doesn’t serve some purpose fitting into the great scheme of easing the process of, well, anything. In fact, there are times when he does stuff that is practical to a fault, but its hard to begrudge an old man his shortcomings. He’s made it this far, he must be doing something right.

Please note that the tree is hourglass shaped, if only a little bit. See, right there, at the top. It frays out just below the angel. This is because the base of the top section of the tree is a nice compact rod that holds the angel much better than the branchy top that normally would point up as the top. Thus, hourglass. It’s a topic of much debate in our family, though we kept it under wraps until this year.

While most of us figured it out long ago, my usually very observant uncle decided to point it out to us with much certainty that the tree was on upside down. We simply stared at him.

His house is my solace in the holidays and in the times when I need to get away. Regardless of the stress of family and friends, this place has its corners that lend themselves to secrecy and solace. I have need of that.

Over the years, I’ve found myself to be the type to only be able to handle my family for a couple days at a time before needing to seriously retreat into the bowels of my mind. Luckily, I always bring plenty for me to do, and I’ve gotten pretty adept at creating busy-ness for myself if for no other reason than to get out of the living room during the 6 o’clock news.

The holidays are about family and fellowship, sure, but sometimes, its about inner peace, contemplation, restorative quiet.

Sure, I broke into some sweet stuff last night, and sure, I’ve pretty much absorbed myself in that stuff, but I did get up and help cook a pretty amazing meal. Being that my grandmother passed away not but a few months ago, it seemed quite important to my mother and my grandfather to make this year’s Christmas Dinner be as close to the usual thing as possible. Understandably so: this year has been full of much change.

My mother is now in her third domicile for the year.
My grandfather has experienced both tremendous grief and utmost joy.
I have taken my first career position.
I have moved three times, myself.
My brother has started his trek toward fatherhood.

Generally, this year has been a rollercoaster. Though, I will admit, when does life ever actually slow down? I keep hearing people say, “well, it will slow down one of these days,” and I think, “no, it won’t; don’t be naive.” It’s a great thing that life doesn’t really slow. There is so much to do as is, why would you want it to slack up any?

My brother was stranded in the middle of Texas today, so my mother and grandfather went off to find him. This is allegory at its most familial.

The dogs are sleeping quite loudly on the couch, which is disheartening because they didn’t sleep at all last night, and might not tonight either.

I can’t quite figure out how to establish armies as quickly as my opponents in my new video game.

It took me nearly tossing my new camera across the room to figure out how to turn it on.

Tomorrow, I’m having coffee with someone I’ve never met and will likely not see again.

I will wish one of my best friends good luck on her way to Costa Rica in less than a week.

I will have to finish detailing how I’m going to save my career in less than two weeks.

And as the old grandfather clock my grandfather’s wife brought here bongs out the hour, I’m reminded that time runs in the same direction, at the same speed, and everything that happens, happens. The best we can do is deal with it and move on. These are lessons I’ve learned from my family.

My cousin bought a journal for my grandfather to record his wisdoms in. She’s a thoughtful girl.

Picture time!

My legs are cramping as I write this, but it is beyond need for me to get this down before I explode:

I know own a digital camera. Want proof?

These are my puppies, Tosha and Tina. Aren’t they adorable? They would tell you as much.

To my left, an eight foot Christmas tree. To my right, a fireplace, cold in this warm Texas winter. Before me, my mother, talking about falling down a set of stairs. In my lap, my laptop (appropos, non?) and inside that, my new video game, Civilization IV Gold Edition. It’s pretty sweet, I must admit.

I also got an amazingly gorgeous bedroom ensemble (sheets, shams, and spreads, oh my!) so I’m thinking I made off pretty good this Christmas. This is the part of my kid-self that screams, “I want stuff! Yay stuff!”

You know, our band has a handbook.

Here I am, stressing over the redesign of a program, and all I really need to do is consult the handbook. If I’d remembered to bring it with me on my trip to my mother’s, I would be better off.  The handbook has a lot of answers in it.

Granted, I would not be able to put together lesson plans or grade schedules or test materials based solely on the handbook, but, by god, it would make it a whole sight easier.

Now,  as analysis, I must say that this is a problem I have. I never take into perspective that there was life before me. I guess I get caught up in my existential-esque thought patterns, hoping to pinpoint the moment I arrive and what I did to get there. Trying to reinvent the wheel every time I arrive on a new doorstep is hardly the way to do things.

I get an elective office, I try and restructure it.
I get a new job, I try and reorganize it.
I get a new place, I try and redesign it.
It’s as if I assume that there was nothing going on before I got there. So, with this in mind, I reapproach the original questions I have to answer for my little dilemma:

How do I better interact with the students?
How do I change the environment of the classroom to be more safe and fun?
How do I interact with parents in a way that leads to positive support for the program?

If I would consult the handbook, I will see that, not only will I have a platform on which to base my interactions with students (supplemented by the lovely texts I’ve been reading), but I will also have an outline of the expectations of the students and what I should do to change the environment of the classroom. Doesn’t that sound simple?!

Geez, dude, you need to stop working so hard and start paying attention more.

It’s the first of two Christmas’s here at my grandfather’s house. My mother’s family is gathered around, and we are watching the Patrick Stewart version of A Christmas Carol. It is quiet here.

Hours before, we were all a-joy, passing gifts back and forth, sharing old jokes, making new ones. It was a good time. Popa’s new wife was quite cordial, pleasant, happy. She is a wonderful woman, she is a blessed spirit in this house that should rightly be quite somber.

My cousin sits next to me, reading The Screwtape Letters. My mother sits next to me, reading the backs of her eyelids. My aunt and uncle are milling about in their heads on the other side of the room. This is a quiet evening, and it is welcome.

My principal gave me this big ‘ol book to read. Discipline in the Secondary Classroom: A Problem-by-Problem Survival Guide, by Randall S. Sprick, Ph.D. Survival indeed.

Anyway, I’m plumbing through this book, trying to decipher exactly how much of this will pertain the my immediate problem, and it slowly dawns on me that my problem has little to do with procedures or rules or how I implement disciplinary tools. Granted, all of those stem from the root cause, but they alone are not the major issue. Overall, I’m finding I just don’t get along with junior high students like I should.

1. Sarcasm: This is the bread and butter of my conversational abilities. I can be outright funny, or just silly, but for the most part, my humor is dry and best with a bitter cabernet sauvignon. It’s not that I’m hurtfully sarcastic, or that I think the students are stupid. On the contrary, I expect most of them are far smarter than I give them credit for. I don’t know if that’s good or naive (as some of my colleagues at school have indicated), but I don’t think badly of most the children. My sarcasm tends to get in the way, however, because I don’t think they understand my humor. Thinking back to where I was as an eighth grader, I was hanging out with a group of girls that were very bitter and angry and very sarcastic, and it took me a long time to acquire that taste. When I did, I nearly pissed myself with laughter. And it doesn’t help that my whole family is really sarcastic, but I guess that doesn’t work too well with thirteen-year-olds.

2. Intolerance: I don’t put with much from anyone. Even if I’m not that type to get in someone’s face when they bother me, I don’t usually let them have their way just because. This translates to junior high kids in that I don’t want them messing around, and that should be enough. They need another reason more than me saying no. That sort of respect should be included with the fact that I’m simply older than them and I have the degree and I know what I’m doing blah blah blah. Such flawed logic. And while I don’t actually express this idea to students, I think I do reflect it a little in my actions.

3. Impatience: If a student has been pestering me, I tend to fly off the handle. I’ve gotten better over the last few months, but part of my principals problem with me has been that I don’t use the discipline system in a way that’s appropriate. I’m sending kids to the office for silly reasons and having no documentation of previous offenses. I use the referral as a threat in the classroom, and the students have picked up on it, and joke about it now. Clearly, that tool is probably long useless. I can only imagine what happens when a student gets to the office, and they can’t do anything with that I’ve given them.

4. Discomfort: I don’t feel comfortable with most of the little processes involved in being a teacher. The disciplinary process, the need to be gentle, the assumption that they really don’t know better.

It’s all about interaction. So I’m reading and reading, and trying to glean the tools I need to just be better at talking to people, essentially, which has not always been my strong point. Baby steps, baby steps.

While my principal mentioned many things he wants dealt with, we’ve talked before about how I don’t have my procedures lined up very specifically. Our band has a handbook, and there are minor procedures in that, but *blush* I’ve not really followed it that well, other than our gum rule, which is there is to be none. Ever. We don’t allow any sort of consumable in the band hall other than water. It’s a point of much contention between students.

The Fine Arts head has given me his procedures that he uses at the high school. All of them are very well written up, and very specific. However, there are so many pages of them, it took me fifteen minutes just to type them all back out. I’m gonna post them here to get some specific critiques to them. Yes, I have adapted them to my classroom. Yes, they are lengthy. Yes, they are just notes for the most part, so pardon my grammar and spelling.

First, here are some rules I’m toying with. These come to me from a teacher I worked with when I student taught, though the idea was mine. He just re-framed them.

1. Respect…each other, the rehearsal, the band hall, the instruments, the educational process;
2. Work…hard together to achieve musical success, to be prepared for rehearsal, to help out with the band;
3. Have fun….making music together, learning about music, etc.

And now the procedures to fit under this umbrella. Brace yourself.
Read the rest of this entry »

As of late, its been sorta blog dry around here. Despite my ability to continue to blog quite strongly for a couple weeks past nablopomo says something to my writing ability that I didn’t suspect. All this time, I thought I was erratic and undisciplined about my practice. So I’ve been gone from here to an extent, only posting occasionally. It’s like not wanting to eat in a way, as the last month was a great exercise for my brain and I’m better for it all.

That said, in the last week and a half, I think I’ve put out three or four very workable poems. The surprise isn’t in that number alone, but in that I’ve also been revising those poems, and some of them are turning out quite nicely. I’m getting better at this, after all.

It is the last day of the semester here, and I will be working all break long. My prinicipal made it clear to me that my classroom management skills are lackluster at best, and he wants to see dramatic improvement by January 18th. I will be on a trip for the bulk of the first week of school, and I have a meeting with him that very first day, so I have to spend a good amount of time in my break redesigning my classroom strategy and creating lesson plans that demonstrate such. He wants hard copies, visible in the classroom, and documentation materials for discipline, strategy plans, phone logs, and assessments. He informs me that strides must be made by March, or I won’t be offered a position in this district again.

I am trying to avoid the depressed state of mind. Lucky for me, I’ve been working on these sorts of things already, and knowing exactly what he expects only makes that easier.  The fact that this is a dire situation only spurs me on more. I am the sort to thrive under pressure. I have a definitive goal and a deadline. Now all I need is the velocipede I’m gonna ride down the hill.

I’m gonna attempt to keep log of things here. If nothing else, it will help me organize my thoughts a little bit, and it will be nice to have teachers *ahem* commenting *ahem* on my progress *ahem*. Also, it will make a nice little blogging project for this next month. *chilibringfriends*

The following video is long. About 20 minutes long. If you have the time, please please watch this video (see, two pleases: it’s that important). It’s about copyright law, how it has evolved, and the logic of how the new internet culture of user-generated content will affect the functionality of copyright laws. It’s brilliant. Please, watch it. (that’s three now).