Megalopolis

My favorite hero is GOD because he is important and if it wasn’t for Jesus dieing on the cross and rose from the dead. We would have never been on earth. Some people don’t believe in GOD but I believe everything Passion of Christ said. I love GOD for him and those people really didn’t ahve to do him like that and that was wrong and I’m talking about Jesus write know. JESUS CHRIST rose for the dead. I love both of them. They are my heros and the are the only two.

-Jamiya

I attempted to write a happy post a few days ago, but my computer didn’t save it. All the best, since life has been less than peachy recently. My fifth graders are slowly becoming sixth graders, which is the age where all children stop being children and start becoming horrendous moving, talking, complaining piles of attitude. I wrote up Jasmine for disrespecting me and not following directions, and she read the disposition and literally yelled in my face, “WHAT?! I AIN’T BEEN BEING DISSPEC’FUL!” before pushing over her desk and slamming the door.

Step one: look up disrespectful. Step two: write me a letter about how, now that you know what it means, you can change your attitude. Right?

Other than that, life has been going strong. I’ve had tuberculosis for about 3 weeks now, but i’m….surviving.

There’s a countdown  in the hallway of days until the Benchmark test. It’s not daunting at all…

must come up! This applies not only to my recent illness, but also to my life in general. Not such a great week, but a definitely quality Friday night/Saturday morning, for almost entirely un-school related reasons! Therefore, I thought they’d definitely be worth sharing…

Friday night I went out to dinner, then to a blues bar for my roommate’s birthday. It was delightful, as I believe all blues bars are, but there was also a large television. I watched the nightly news, not feeling much in the mood to dance, with some interest. In that we have no television at home, watching the news (and the local commercials) has some special value. It was nice to see LV on the weather map. A while later, one of the band members called up a special guest to sing a few songs, and it was the weatherman I had watched just an hour or so earlier. He sang Marvin Gaye and was in all areas most delightful. I love dichotomies like this.

This morning I woke up and discovered it was almost 70 degrees. Now, I was going to go for a run anyway (www.ragnarrelay.com), but the weather was a delightful perk. Running down the lakefront, I like to pass the time by counting the beer cans on the side of the road. Today was a total of thirteen, which I recognize as both a new high and horrendously depressing. The lakefront is a somewhat twisty narrow road that goes from the highway all up the side of the lake in my town, and I can only imagine the number of cars that have drunkenly missed a turn and….ended up at the bottom of legendary Lake Chicot. Dun dun dun. I also made friends with a dog that I named Pete, who ran with me the whole way, ran around the house while I took a shower, then sat on the porch while I did work and drank coffee. I may or may not keep him.

After a little bit of home work, I decided to take my work with me and go across the river to Greenville. I stopped into Mcormick’s Book Inn, which was AMAZING!!! Not only in quality of books, but also the fact that the back room is a museum and the owner is the nicest man ever. New frequent stop, fo sho. Come visit me, I’ll take you.

Now I’m sitting in the Delta Grind, where I come almost every weekend (and sometimes during the week). I’m half working, but mostly just appreciating the fact that I can recognize and love the subtleties of this place. Or perhaps not so subtle, but still delightful.

<3 delta love.

Due to popular demand, I was all set to write a really happy post about how much i’m jazzed to be back in school, etc. And I was going to! Around the middle of last week, I was totally ready to come back here and rock my classroom from top to bottom.

A rental car drive from Atlanta to Memphis, a stranded suitcase, a broken-down car, and something around 17 consecutive hours of food poisoning later (it dawned on me somewhere between 3-4 am that perhaps I shouldn’t eat from my giant jar of purchased-in-october peanut butter…), my spunk and grit and determination are still here, though hidden under a GIANT headache and having to miss the 2nd day back. Not only that, but I was so thoroughly incapacitated yesterday that I could not create sub plans, nor finish my grades. GIANT props to my roommate for doing those for me. The not-random acts of kindness she will receive soon should be properly overwhelming.

All this being said, I AM ready to take on my class and 2nd semester. I sketched out a relatively nice plan for the 2nd semester (which I’m sure will get tossed out the window all too soon). Bring it, second semester. I am only becoming more experienced (or will as soon as I can actually be in the classroom…).

So, Bobby, Colleen, and everyone else who believes my entries are omens of death and unemployment, take heart. Not even ALL those things can discourage me.