Here I Am in all my Whinyness

Don't like to complain, but I'm pooped. I'm in the thick of the first term with the creative writers; their first piece has come in and I need to finish grading it before the next one rolls in. Crunch time. The freshman are writing too, and that always adds more work to an already busy assessment routine for them. It will let up, though, as the creative writers turn to poetry and script writing.

The byproduct of this is that my creativity dipstick reads about two quarts low. I'm burning the candle at both ends and my brain's a bit on the mushy side. Also, school is a very social place, and to be honest, socializing takes a lot out of me.

Introvert, thy name is Roxanne.

I miss feeling good at blogging. I don't like posting just to post, but I do it because I want to continue blogging.

I'm tired. I'm whiny. I think I'll stop now.

Conquered the Crud

The crud I was afflicted with is nearly gone, and school rolls on. The freshmen are settling in. They are a good bunch, typically energetic, at times completely off the wall, and mostly working hard at trying to keep up and fit in.

The creative writers are a bit quiet and don't seem to be as tuned in to the artsy-fartsyness of it all as the classes I've worked with in the past, but the year is new. I think it's important to give them a feeling of having a place to let go and rev up their creative engines, but this group seems a bit reticent. I'm waiting for something to happen that gives them the push they need to get comfortable and allow their individual natures to shine in their writing. Sometimes there's magic in a class like creative writing; I guess it won't always be there, and instead of doing somersaults to make it happen, perhaps I need to work on my own acceptance.

I'm taking a class in Tai Chi Chih, which is a simplified version of the traditional Tai Chi. I've always been curious about those groups of people I've seen practicing their slow, dance-like meditations in an outdoor setting. I'm in the early stages, but the form seems to be a good fit for me. I'm a walker, not a runner, and I'm hoping the ease and grace of this provides a good foundation for physical meditation. A whirling dervish I ain't.

A-choo!

We're one week into the school yaer, and I have a cold. Yuk. Usually, it takes at least three weeks for the germs to spread themselves around. I slept so much this weekend one would think I'm headed for the depression ward. Nothing like that snotted-up, groggy feeling when one is trying to inspire a class of sleepy ninth graders to want to understand parts of speech or do a "close reading" of short story on a Monday morning.
Oh well, I'm usually good for one cold per school year; I'm getting it out of the way early this time.

When the Posting is Easy

School's on. The freshmen are in honeymoon phase and the creative writers are quiet and confused. I'm up early to enjoy the summer feeling of days with nowhere to go, nothing in particular to do, but it's fake now; it's Saturday during the school year. It's early in the year, the caught-up time when there's no ungraded homework in my bag and lesson plans are (for this moment) making perfect sense and firmly in place.

It feels good to get back to the rhythm of Saturday peace walking, grocery shopping, and laundry, with a Netflix movie waiting for the end of the day.

Ahhhhhh, the simple life.

Here's a poem for this morning:





Just at dawn
Minnesota pines
Mimic the silhouette portraits
We made of each other
In third grade.

They inhale,
Pausing and posing
As their dark splendor
Presses cut-out shapes
Against a water color sky.

Skoo Pome

My students
I shouldn’t call them “my”
They don’t belong to me
I only borrow them for a short time
And life is long.

The ones who sit in the back,
The ones who ask me why why why
do we have to learn this STUFF?
The shy smile
Never raising a hand and
Ducking slightly, looking at the desktop
when I’m looking for an answer,
Or sitting in the very front
And hating it.

Chatterboxes
Jocks and techies
Fashionistas
Intellectuals
Geeks and Goths
Drama queens and emos
Sick dudes
Good kids
The Popular People.


The one who talks with her hands,
The one who sleeps in class,
The one who saw me in Target
the day I looked like I just crawled out
from under a rock and said,
“You look different when you’re not in school.”
The one who keeps secrets of the secret war,
The one who called me a bitch to my face,
Almost.

BST
MCA
SAT
ACT
NHS
NWEA
NCLB
AYP
EBD
ADHD
ODD
ESL
BFD
WTF
TMI

Cell phone
iPod
IM
Email
P.ersonal D.igital A.ssistant
Blue Tooth
WiFi
Laptop
Log in
Password
Copy code
Lunch PIN
Smartboard
Google
Moodle
Turnitin

FAQ

Here’s a book,
where’s my chalk?

Just Made It

Sometimes I write a poem when I'm supposed to be doing something else. This morning, I almost missed the peace walk because of it. I got there in time, but I looked pretty ratty. I barely got a chance to run a comb through my hair (my mother used to say that, "At least run a comb through your hair!") before I grabbed my sign and rushed out the door to pick up my friend Heidi. Good thing I wasn't headed to a beauty contest- ha!

Here's the poem:

Forgetting

I look out the window to see the petunias
bob their heads in agreement with the rain.
There’s a birdfeeder under that morning glory vine,
but you’d never know it. In the winter,
when snow piles halfway up to the top,
I remember the vine, and think,
“Nah, that doesn’t happen.”
It’s five-thirty, and I remember the summer
light staying until almost ten.
“That doesn’t happen either,” I tell myself,
“maybe nine, but certainly not ten.”