Along Came Holly…

I haven’t been on here at all lately–I hope to be able to catch up more this summer when my world gets far less stressful.  So a few updates and the new stuff…

I did the 5K, despite the cold and rain.  It didn’t rain while I was running, but it did both before and after.  Despite walking 1/4 of the way up a steep hill, I knocked almost three minutes off my previous 5K time for a new personal best of 33:37.  I was pleased with my performance and in my training, I discovered how much more I like running outdoors versus indoors.  The treadmill is good when it is icy, snowy, and freezing cold or rainy, but the outdoors rocks otherwise.  I am not nearly as bored outside and the time passes much more quickly.  On the treadmill, I just watch the stats stack up as I stare at the boring basement bedroom surroundings.

All hell has broken loose at school, as it usually does at the end of the year.  10 more teachers were pink slipped and for all practical purposes, eliminated altogether to save money our district doesn’t need to save.  The district has 2.1 million in the bank, yet those of us remaining will have to teach 28-30 children in horrible educational circumstances so the district “looks good” on paper, I guess.  Our negotiations are even worse and I know more than the average bear due to my executive affiliations with our union.  We will all be forced to lose thousands of dollars if the contract goes as the board wishes.

Then there’s individual students.  In the past week, I have been at two depressing, disastrous IEP meetings.  In one, I was there advocating that a severely autistic child should not be placed in my classroom next year because my room is not an appropriate placement considering his limited abilities to communicate and participate academically (he has not passed any of the academic milestones required to “pass” kindergarten).  Our staff is advocating a placement in a cognitively impaired room where the teacher to student ratio is 1:12 vs. my 1:25 currently and GOD KNOWS what next year.  We were basically told by ISD “experts” (and I use that term loosely) we don’t know what we’re talking about.  I went to another meeting the next day for a student I’ve had for two years only to be told by the parents that they really don’t feel their child has grown in my classroom.  In other words, I sucked.

I guess, to me, this all adds up to being really unappreciated.  I have always accepted that people take what I do for granted, but this always equaled out somehow when I see the learning taking place and a nice little thank you from a parent on the bottom of a newsletter.  This year, I just can’t get passed the crap.  Told from all sides how I should teach, run my classroom, accept students with inappropriate classroom placements, and do it with grace and a smile–because after all, I have a job.  Do it for less money, too, while our superintendent enjoys his 10,000 dollar bonus.

Ben and I have seriously discussed me not teaching.  I’ve never imagined not teaching, ever.  I know I’ve said it before, but I have always held teaching as my sanctuary.  Despite everything else going on in my life, I have always been able to turn to teaching and know I’m good at what I do.  I feel as if I’ve failed elsewhere in my life and I refuse to believe that I’ve failed as a teacher as well.  I know I’m still good at the teaching part, but it’s the everything else that sucks.  This year has been more bad days than good, and Ben and I’s rule is that you keep doing it until the bad outweighs the good.  I just don’t know what else I’d do.  I’m waiting for God to fill in the blanks so I can proceed.

So as I run, these are the thoughts that permeate my being.  I also wonder about if I’ll ever be a mom, will Ben and I ever build our dreamhouse, and how I will possibly pack up all of my classroom in the next 15 days.  I have no idea what I did before I ran.

The Grand Haven 5K is next Saturday, and it’s time that I get my ass outside running so I will not choke and die breathing real air.  I have completed most of my training on our treadmill in the basement in the wee hours of the morning–5:45am to be exact.   Living in GR proper, I do not feel real comfortable running outdoors at that time with my ipod rocking in my ears.  And I cannot run any distance without my music, forget it.  So, the last week of training, I commit to running after school around my neighborhood and that time is quickly approaching.

So today after dropping off my carpool buddy and getting my back adjusted, I tried to scope out a new outside running route.  Last fall’s route was very last minute and a bit frightening.  I ended up running the “big block” around my house, which involved running over I-196 via an overpass with no sidewalk lane and through a very abandoned-looking industrial district.   I also had to run under the highway on the way back to my house, always wondering if a homeless individual was sleeping at the top and was about to jump me.  Never saw anyone, but what else is there to do while running besides worry and sweat?  So, a new route it is.

I think I found a decent alternative to the old route–it is all through suburban neighborhood that I have walked with the dog, there are sidewalks (safety first!), and I am more familiar with the area than my previous route.  I don’t think it’s quite as long, but sacrifice for safety I will.  I don’t need to star on my own personal episode of I Survived retelling my harrowing account of how I was mugged, raped, and left for dead behind a dumpster while running through a deserted industrial park as I trained for a 5K.  As they tattoo “STUPID” on my forehead!

This whole 5K has kind-of blown up in my face.  Initially, several people said they’d run this, and I was actually asked to do it by a friend who needed some motivation to train for it and felt inspired by me doing it in the fall, so she asked if I’d do it with her.  I ran the one in the fall to prove to myself I could do it–I wasn’t terribly interested in keeping it up, but she’s a good friend and I thought, why not?  To date, I think everyone has canceled except my fateful carpool buddy–even my girlfriend who needed a motivator is looking like she will bow out gracefully.  With my luck, my sidekick will break her foot playing scooter hockey with the kids at school next week and I will be the Lone Run Ranger again.  I guess it shouldn’t matter–I’m just racing myself and the stop watch anyway.

That’s not all of it, though.  In my heart of hearts, I’m disappointed because it has been a very hard year in many facets of my life, but despite that, I stayed committed to my friends and trained for this run.  I would have LOVED to sleep in through the winter, especially in the midst of my why-am-I-taking-all-these-grad-classes-right-now crisis, but I went sleep deprived and dragged my ass onto that treadmill to honor my commitment.  I am not in any position to judge anyone–everyone has their reasons, and many, many others have also had a difficult year, but I also can’t help but feel how I do.  Let down, I guess.  The fall 5K was for me, this one was to help them and be a part of something–I didn’t need this one, this one was for them.

Regardless of my friends’ decisions, I will be at the starting line with my new obnoxiously red-colored ipod arm band in Grand Haven at 9am next Saturday.  To quote one of my favorite running tunes: “It’s you against you, it’s the paradox that drives us all.”  At the beginning and the end, I’m challenging myself, so the only person that needs to show…is me.  The Lone Run Ranger.

Ben continuously thinks he is a stand-up comedian.  He is always attempting to make me laugh with his witty banter and sarcastic comments about anything and everything.  Most times end with his disappointment at my reaction and/or my rolling of eyes.  Tonight he actually came through.

We were looking for Lucy and after Ben went through his usual routine of whistling, calling her name, and checking closets, he went to look for her downstairs.  After a couple minutes, he called for me to come downstairs.  Ben had thrown our sleeping bags onto the twin bed in the workout room and of course, curled up in the middle of one was Lu.  All we could see was her black head and green eyes peering out.  We both laughed.

Holly: (with a note of sarcasm, but a smile) “She’s so precious”

Ben: “If by precious you mean she’s fat and black, well then, yes.”

Don’t know if it was my good mood or true humor, but I credit him with an authentic Holly laugh.  Love that Ben.

Changes are taking place at the Rapin Compound.  We got rid of our old TV and armoire (thank you Tommy) and purchased a new Bluray player with Netflix, a 40″ flat screen Sony Bravia, and moved up Mom and Dad’s old stereo cabinet from the basement to set it on.  I think it looks like a college pad again in our living room, Ben thinks it looks great.  I think he’s flashing back to better days when someone didn’t make him clean up his dirty clothes off the bedroom floor or wash his dishes.

Next is DirecTV.  Bye bye birdie.  I will miss HGTV, USA, and Biography, but we cannot justify the cost anymore.  Basic tv with an antennae will come to suit us just fine.  We have discovered the wonders of Netflix and watching entire seasons of tv as we wish, sans commercials, for 8.99.  That is a heck of a deal, Ben is amazed by this technology–and that is really saying something considering the things he understands in the world of sheeky geek.

It is also time for us to start consolidating our things.  That will be an interesting venture, one pack rat and one sentimental I-can’t-possibly-imagine-my-life-without-that-item individual.   We already know we will have to get a storage unit to store some of our things so our house appears to be bigger than it is, but we are going to have to make a serious commitment not to move crap.  I think we will get there, it will call for baby steps, I suppose.  Compromise and letting go, two of my least favorite things.

So, in the meantime, we are on episode 3, season 1 of Dexter and I am missing stuff even as I type.  It is a weird show founded on crazy ideas, yet you still come to care about the characters, despite the disturbing stuff they do.  I love a good crime show and Dexter is rising to the challenge, along with a little bit of romance and some deep seeded emotional problems.  Right up my alley–

I’m off to enjoy sheeky geek with my favorite sheeky geek.

After doubting my love of teaching and contemplating my future, I was reminded in two very simple ways by two very different student interactions why I can’t imagine doing anything else.

1.  To prep for my trip out west, I have begun fake baking to get my skin prepared for the Nevada and Arizona heat and sun.  As a result, my skin is very dry.  A parent several years back bought me the most fabulous smelling coconut body lotion that makes me think of spring break, so I dug it out this morning and put it on.  A student told me today that I smelled like Florida.  What a great analogy, I did smell like Florida and I put it on to remind me of going to Florida.  She understood implicitly, amazing.

2.  I have a first grade boy in my class who is one of the neatest kids I’ve ever had.  He is a very, very intelligent kid who is so motivated to learn and push himself–he gets giddy about it!  To boot, he is a very kind kid with a good sense of humor–he’s not obnoxious about any of his talents, just very accepting of himself.  At any rate, as he was heading out of class to get his backpack and snowclothes to go home, he stopped and told me, “I can’t believe it’s Friday already.  It seems like it was just Monday.  I just had so much fun this week, I can’t believe it’s the weekend!”  Kids rarely admit that school was fun or that they enjoyed themselves, yet he did.  A very rewarding moment for a teacher doubting her talents.

Another very powerful, simple reminder: I only have 16 school days before Spring Break.  I quote a fellow teacher when I say, “I think I can, I think I can…”

I am tired of being a teacher.  I never thought I’d say it, but this year has put my love of learning and children in a direct contest with politics, gossip, meddling, and drama.  Above all else, I am tired of the drama.  I am a very honest person by nature–blunt is a word that people have used to describe me as of late, and I can’t argue.  I don’t like secrets, faux-friendships, or being put in the middle of impossible situations.  Being a teacher this year has done nothing but bring on the drama, from little things in the classroom to entire district and union issues that I want no part of, but obligation dictates otherwise.  I don’t want to be obliged–I want to bow out gracefully and hand the torch to another runner.

The lack of funding in education right now has made work stressful.  Hate it.  I have always looked at teaching as my safe-haven of sorts.  Despite how out of control other parts of my life feel, I can go into that classroom, shut the door, and teach America’s future how to read a pictograph and write a simple persuasive essay about the best holiday in the world.  Maybe it’s a control issue, but I’ve always considered the classroom as a place where I’ve yet to truly fail.  So many other important areas of my life are riddled with failure, I’ve always been able to pride myself on my ability to compartmentalize my life for 7 hours and just be a teacher.

This year, everytime I shut my door, someone opens it and dumps something else in my lap I don’t want.  I’ve been told union secrets and vowed secrecy, asked to give my professional opinion on building cuts but to keep quiet about what I know, told stories about fellow co-workers and families in the strictest of confidences.  I haven’t asked for any of this information; to the contrary, much of this has been shared with me without my consent–only after “the secret’s out” am I asked to keep mum.  Co-workers have done much of the same–gossip about this one or that, rumors about cuts and who will be where, caddy stuff I hate.  All of it is dragging me down.

To add insult to injury, I took on the task of taking 5 graduate courses in the course of the past year.  This is a decision I will not make again, but I’m way past that.  I’ve spent countless hours reading about how schools are failing, that we place too much emphasis on high-stakes testing, we are disciplining our students in a completely backward way, our writing curriculum is not up to par, I do not give enough time to my special needs students, I need to consider the needs of my impoverished students more carefully…the thoughts swirling in my head are endless.  So now, I’m not only burdened with secrets I didn’t want to know in the first place, but I feel like I’m failing all the groups of students I service in most areas of the curriculum.

I haven’t even touched the needs of my students and their families.  I have 5 students with special needs of one sort or another and 20 more students who vary from extremely needy to caddy to ultra-competitive.  And the parents–it seems that the more students they put in my classroom, the more parents feel like they should expect of me.  I have parents who’d like a daily email of how their child did that day to parents who think I’m pushing their child too hard to parents who think their child isn’t being challenged enough to parents who would like their child’s red words tested on the same day each week, “if that’s okay”…the list is far longer than this.  It’s almost as if I am no longer a professional with research and years of experience to back up how my classroom operates, I’m a glorified babysitting service that will hand you a note at the end of the day letting you know when Joey ate, pooped, and passed his spelling test.

As judgmental as this statement sounds, the breakdown of the American family and our economy is what I believe has directly affected my experiences in the classroom.  Parents don’t have time between working 3 jobs or running the siblings to every little skill class they can enroll their children in to read with their kids at night or study math flash cards–it’s now my job, and they want a weekly report proving that I’ve done it.  They don’t have time to challenge their intelligent children or help their struggling kid with math–also my job, and have I individualized the curriculum to meet the needs of their child?  Better question yet–have you individualized your family life style to accommodate YOUR child?

I have been praised by several parents who acknowledge how hard I work and I do feel that my best efforts are appreciated and in most cases, respected.  I’m just fried, I know me and I know I can’t do this year over and over again the next 20 years.  This post returns to where it began–I’m tired.  Tired of second guessing myself, parents, co-workers, and administration.  It was reported to me in high school that by the time I was 60, it was predicted that I would change professional careers 3 times.  I am 32, and for the first time in my life, I believe that prediction could come true.

It has been a long time since I’ve written.  No real excuse besides being busy and uninspired.  Recent events have gotten me inspired.

It has been a very sad week for me–everything around me seems seeped in sadness.  It’s like a thick fog that is all encompassing and while only some of it involves me directly, it is draining. I have to spill it so I can sleep tonight, my brain is full and there’s no where else to stash the despair.

First, a good friend’s husband lost his job this past week.  Not totally remarkable here in Michigan, but she is a stay at home mom and two of her three kids are in my class this year.  I feel for her in a tremendous way–I cannot IMAGINE the impact of an event like that.  I would be rocking in a corner, especially with three kids to worry about in addition to myself and my husband.  I am helping in any way I can, but the real help she needs is peace of mind and resolution–how does one give that?

Next, I found out that one of my very best friend’s spouse is heading for an interview in Las Vegas in two weeks.  If the mountain (aka work) won’t come to Mohammad, Mohammad must go to the mountain.  I can’t imagine not having her around on a daily basis, it makes me incredibly lonely just to think about it.  She is a great listener, loyal, honest, trustworthy, and funny–you know, basically all the things girls look for in a friend but often have a hard time finding?  Yeah, she may soon be a Nevadian (is that what they’re called?).

Work is no better.  I absolutely LOVE my job, I cannot imagine a more rewarding career that teaching children, but the politics of teaching in a nearly bankrupt state are overwhelming.  Proposed cuts that I am aware of currently leave me making $5K less next year with less insurance, no tuition reimbursement (I have to keep educating myself though), mandated hikes on contributions to my state pension, reduced Title I aide time, and more students in my classroom as a reward.  I feel like I give 110% to my students and their families, my superiors and the district itself, and the thanks I get for a job well done are significantly less pay, reduced benefits, and even more children to educate.  I am only one person, how anyone in their right mind believes I can teach 30 six, seven, and eight year olds in my tiny classroom how to read, write, and do basic math has not set foot in a classroom recently.  It is damn near impossible and the stress of that task has made me contemplate my future in education for the first time in my nine year career.  I couldn’t live with giving 30 kids a mediocre start to their educational career–they need to know how to read and I don’t know how to be responsible for ensuring that 30 kids will do just that.  There’s just not enough of me to go around.  I have to teach at least one more year to get back the money I’ve paid into my pension–after that, for the first time ever, I just don’t know.

Then there’s the news.  Haiti either makes me want to scream with rage or accept that an apocalypse is eminent.  All those orphans that need loving homes–families like my own who would give their right arm for a child, will waste away and die in that country because politics and red tape is in the way.  Not to mention all the dismal reports about unemployment, new home sales, faulty cars, faulty mortgages, faulty health care legislation, the list goes on and on.

Finally, I truly committed to losing weight this year.  To my credit, I’ve lost 10 pounds in the last month between dieting and a steady ritual of exercise and running.  This week, I have been overtaken by my addiction to food and depressed eating.  I will run tomorrow morning, but I’m sure I’ll find something sinful and undiet-like to shove in my face through the course of the day.  You’d think I’d embrace my chance here to control what little of my life I feel like I can at this moment–all the other sadnesses are really out of my reach, and yet this one, I just can’t muster up the strength to care.  Hopefully it will kick me in the ass on the treadmill at 6am.

Anyone who knows me acknowledges that I’ve never been a glass half-full type of gal.  I tend to look toward pessimism to ensure that there are no surprises, I’ve looked at all the possibilities and I’m ready to accept whatever happens–good, bad, or indifferent.  In my life, I’ve had my share of letdowns and hard times and I think I’ve endured relatively well.  But as I look at all the sadness right now, all I see is more sadness.  None of my stresses appear to be leaning toward a positive result.  At what point is a ray of sunlight going to disperse some of the fog?  I have much to be thankful for, I realize this.  I just feel totally powerless when it comes to my future.

It has been a pretty monumental week or two as far as celebrity deaths go–we’ve got Billy Mays, Ed McMahon, Farrah Fawcett, Steve McNair…and unless you live on Mars, Michael Jackson.  While I am sad about MJ’s death (my first ever album was Thriller), I think the most understated death was that of Farrah Fawcett.  I really did not know much about her illness other than she was fighting with Enquirer about posting death pictures of her…until I watched her documentary Farrah’s Story.

She was a strong woman with limitless courage.  This was in spite of being surrounded by spineless men, particularly her son and husband who were caught doing drugs together.  Her son’s parting gift?  He was incarcerated when she passed away, her only child.  Dispicible.  I was inspired by her will to live–she went to Germany for all kinds of alternative treatments and never gave up, even when her cancer came back again and again.  It was quite a moving documentary; if you have not seen it, I recommend it.

Ben asked me to acknowledge publicly that he renewed my ip address for this blog so it can continue to be the inspiring piece of literature that it is.

Thank you Ben for keeping me in touch with my fans.

I will have more earth shattering news and updates on a more frequent schedule soon, as school is out in 12 days!

Here I am, at SFO, ready to fly back from my Spring Break 09 in California.  Ben thought I should post a teaser until I could really blog and tell the whole story of the trip, complete with pictures.  Here are some of the highlights…

Ben’s quest to find the Tahoe home from the Godfather, Part II.

Finding the famous arch sign in Reno.

Hiking 4 miles to see sequoias.

Staying in a hotel built in the 19th century, complete with community baths.

California’s resistance to installing guardrails.

The freak snowstorm that we didn’t take seriously and almost kept us at Yosemite.  (It made the 4×4 upgrade all worthwhile!)

The pedophile at SFO.

Ben attempting to swindle us two more round trip tickets via United Airlines for Spring Break 2010.

Check in soon, loyal readers, you will not be disappointed.  Ben and I don’t go ANYWHERE without humorous stories to follow!