should i stay or should i go...

rather than pitching a baseball game today, zambrano was pitching a fit by the 5th inning. he threw 35 pitches in the 5th and had no outs... and they took him out.

whatever. so i have only this week left in 2 of my isu classes - a test on wednesday, a paper due friday, a reading record due tuesday, oh, and a personal text set due tuesday... jeez.

i'm trying to decide what to do about next year - stay in peoria regardless of where i may end up, move home, apply at dunlap, move to chicago... the chicago thing appeals cuz i'd try to get an apartment near whatever school i work in, and i'd have my bike and the bus and whatever...

so. it's hard to decide when no one else is really affected by where i go. of course there's family up home and they'd like it if i chose to go up there or to chicago. there's friends here in peoria and i don't wanna move away from them.

when i think of staying in peoria, sometimes i think it's not the coolest place to be and it sucks sometimes. but then i think, as a teacher i have 2.5 months in the summer plus breaks, and so peoria is really just a place to hang my hat - so the fact that it can suck sometimes isn't really that bad.

but the pull to home/chicago vs. peoria is kind of even, and so really it's just 'where do i wanna be?'

finishing the masters' program at isu and being probably transferred within the clusterf**k that is the district where i work makes me think of getting out. it had been that i didn't even have the option of moving away because of the masters' program. now options are open. jeez. maybe england will help clear my mind. maybe i'll just stay in england. is that allowed?

no sweep for you

cubs avoided the sweep with help from maddux today. woo hoo.

i think i'm gonna do some baseball math with my students this week. i already turned in my lesson plans last friday, but i got the bug to do this today...

cell phone etiquette

if other people can talk at louder than conversational levels on their cell phone while in public places, i should be able to sing at an equal or lesser level whenever the mood strikes me. right now i am in panera working on my curriculum paper and the person sitting near me is virtually shouting into her cell phone about random, everyday things. i am listening to 'call and answer' on my ipod and wish to sing. should i?

speaking of my curriculum paper, check this out, it's my opening paragraph. should i change it?


In a successful literacy program, each learner is comfortably challenged, where they experience the feeling that there is new learning happening, they are interested in that learning; the learning is scaffolded to support student success. It is difficult to explain or define the ideal moment, it ‘feels right,’ but it also feels a little ‘intimidating.’ The intimidation factor for the teacher possibly comes: from a worry that this moment won’t; with a worry about whether this moment will occur again; with the question, “How soon will I be able to help it occur?” Similarly, a golfer after a perfect drive admires the flight, and wonders how long it’ll be till the next one. “What did I do right?” “Was it a fluke?” “How was I standing?” “Were my hands opened?” “Oh, what kind of ball was that?” And as the golfer faces different conditions on every approach, so does the teacher; and the only way to sharpen the game is through practice, analysis, reflection, and study. I attempt in this paper to define my current beliefs about the ideal literacy program through research, practice, reflection and study.

we're supposed to be defining our literacy program, and it makes me feel weird to use the word 'i' in a research paper, but i think it's better than repeating things like: teachers should, or the model teacher... i mean, it's my literacy program, my beliefs about what i do, or should or will do. i'm not trying to tell other people what to do. i don't know, but i think i'm gonna ask my professor.

i like this site

today is the first day i've looked at this website, but they reported a call for rumsfeld's resignation and a scientist's report of probable global warming.

i wonder what they have today?

scaredy cat

i came up home last night and didn't wanna leave my cats in peoria for such a long stay away. because there is no bed upstairs for me, i slept on the couch, but didn't want my cats to stay alone in that room. i can't let them have the run of the house cuz of their potential for shenanagens. so the solution was to ask becky, my sister, to let the cats sleep in her room, and she was fine with that.

at 6:00 this morning, when i should have been awake anyway, she came and woke me up to tell me that snuffy had been crying for an hour. "can i just let him run around the house?" she asked, "i think that's what he wants."

"fine, yeah, whatever."

so he emerged from her bedroom and was seriously mewing nonstop. mew-mew-mew-meoooow-mew-mew-mew-meowwwww.........

i called him and he responded with one 'mew' and found me. then he walked away and was once more pacing and 'mewing' for what i didn't know. i've never seen this in him before, i don't know if he had a bad dream or what. so i went and got him and held him for a while, thinking he would calm down. he didn't. he wanted to be pacing, not sitting on me.

but this time, when he started pacing, he was not crying - as much. and this i could sleep through. he's fine now, but extra cuddly because we're in a strange place.

what a dork.

hanco blanco

i think we should nickname cubs' catcher, henry blanco: hanco blanco. that would be fun. i don't know if he'll be any good, he's 5 years older than barrett, but i think it would be fun to call him hanco blanco. and i think zambrano is right that everyone should be more 'faucused' on the game.

i cannot go to school today, said little peggy ann mckay

hello i am going to talk to you about one of my favorite students ever, tyler, a smart kid with sense and personality, and sometimes a tendency toward trouble...

so today about 10:55, 25 minutes before first grade lunch, he says his ear hurts and his mom said that if he got another earache, he could come home. i hear things like this daily, someone tells me that their mom said they can come home if they feel sick. i think moms just say it to get kids to go to school when they don't wanna go to school... and usually they get to feeling better once they get to school.

i told tyler that he should go to lunch and eat and play at recess and see if he would feel better. lunch came and went, tyler came in upset, but that was because he got in a scuffle at lunchtime playing basketball. i figured maybe he was feeling better though. well then he started whining about his ear again and holding it and looking like he wanted to go home. okay so i buzzed the office and asked them to call home for tyler.

so mom would be coming within 20 minutes and eventually the topic turned to the 'conduct and effort party,' which would be happening at 1:30. i was informing the kids who would qualify for the party, and tyler was one of those kids, but obviously he would be home by the time the party started. tyler's head lifted and he said argumentatively, 'but i came to school for that party. that's why i came to school today!'

as though the world didn't think tyler was depressed enough, a mother came in on cue with birthday treats for her daughter. tyler looked as though school and the world had let him down today. maybe i'll make him a cupcake for tomorrow. probably not.

not where, but who you're with...

i had finished reading charlotte's web to my class a few weeks ago, and i've still been thinking about it because i had to record a literature circle discussion for my grad class.

while reading the book, i realized the power of re-reading books. this was the fourth time i'd read charlotte's web to a class, and probably the 8th time i'd read the book altogether. i still pick up new ideas and meanings from the book, and feel stupid for not having noticed them before. i shouldn't feel stupid, i've been told countless times about the benefits of re-reading.

i had been noticing the same thing with the reading selections we have for first grade: now that i've been working with this series for 3 years, i think, i've become somewhat accustomed to it (which probably means the district will be getting rid of it soon)... i've been picking out different bits of each story, whether they be in the text or in the illustrations, and i think my students are benefitting from my experience.

okay, well anyway, i had been meaning to tell a couple things about charlotte's web. first of all, as i read the story, i noticed how pathetically dependant wilbur was on charlotte throughout the book, and how strong and wise charlotte seemed throughout the book. though they are the same age, charlotte was born with extra wisdom as a spider, perhaps because she lives such a short life, she becomes mature and wiser faster, like 7 dog years to a human year, and perhaps because most pigs aren't left to live to their life expectancy, they never reach maturity and wisdom.

i don't know, but as i was reading that book, i wondered whether i was more like charlotte's character or wilbur's. a lot of the time, i am like wilbur, dependant, silly, and in need of someone to keep me from going crazy. in need of reassurance.

sometimes i am like charlotte. she is more secure and in control of situations. it seems to depend on the situation for me.

and the best part of the literature circle discussion was when the kids said wilbur wanted to save charlotte from dying the way she had saved him. and then some kids started to say that wilbur couldn't stop charlotte from dying... you can't stop anyone from dying... if you die, you die... and then one of my favorites: "dying is life. life is dying."