Greetings Lifeforms!
I come raging back to you today from a riptide of crazy. I looked back to see the last time I actually posted for your reading pleasure, and I haven't actually said anything since I left the Polar North state of Alaska. I would love to tell you that I haven't posted because I've been too busy to type, but that would be a lie. Quite honestly, between a glitchy computer, a little job hopping, and some soul searching, my mind has been elsewhere.
I come raging back to you today from a riptide of crazy. I looked back to see the last time I actually posted for your reading pleasure, and I haven't actually said anything since I left the Polar North state of Alaska. I would love to tell you that I haven't posted because I've been too busy to type, but that would be a lie. Quite honestly, between a glitchy computer, a little job hopping, and some soul searching, my mind has been elsewhere.
Lucky for you, its back here for the moment ;) This blog is a little catching up, a lot of sarcasm, and a touch of genuine concern for worldly issues (which, like chilli powder, is painful and gritty in large quantities.)
I left Tununak (read previous posts for more information on this place, but basically, envision a neighborhood of low income housing in an inner city, rip out the running water, and transplant that picture to a desert covered in snow) on May 17th and successfully navigated back to Ohio, completing a 10 month teaching assignment in rural Alaska. Toting two 50 lb suitcases (maybe one was 51lbs but one look at my face and no airline steward was going to squabble with me) and a wealth of knowledge and experience concerning a culture different than my own, I was floating on cloud 10 (obviously one step above cloud 9.) Let's not call it "running away." But I was definitely running TO Ohio. Between seeing people who loved me and being able to consume Chipotle on a regular basis, I finally understood the truth of prophet Dorthy, "there is no place like Ohio." (Home, Ohio, close enough.)
For two weeks, I ate, drank (water and kool-aid only of course) and was merry to the max. In Alaska I developed some strange digestive issues and I was able to mostly sort those out with the addition of fresh fruits and vegetables to my diet (new motto: fiber is a fierce friend and a ferocious enemy.) $17 watermelons were a thing of the past and the world seemed to be my oyster. Two weeks after I flew into Cleveland I had:
1) Replaced my own car battery-who needs a car dealership anyway?
2) Interviewed and been offered a job teaching 7th and 8th grade science at a Charter school in downtown Cincinnati
3) Eaten my own weight in food every single day
4) Shunned my Alaska phone for the Iphone 4-thus realizing my dream to have someone listen and respond to every word I say (thank you Siri!)
5) I'm sure I did a lot more than that, but I can't think of anything great right now and 5 is a rounder number than 4
1) Replaced my own car battery-who needs a car dealership anyway?
2) Interviewed and been offered a job teaching 7th and 8th grade science at a Charter school in downtown Cincinnati
3) Eaten my own weight in food every single day
4) Shunned my Alaska phone for the Iphone 4-thus realizing my dream to have someone listen and respond to every word I say (thank you Siri!)
5) I'm sure I did a lot more than that, but I can't think of anything great right now and 5 is a rounder number than 4
Though life in Alaska was alright, life in Ohio was "the shiz."
I worked the same summer camp in July that I did the year prior. Here's a plug for Rosie's Girls Camp.... (my camp is in Cincinnati but it started in Vermont )
Young women in the world need more experiences like this one! I hope to partake in the camp once again this summer, but that's another story for another blog.
In August I began the process of starting all over in a new school district. I met tons of people, learned a whole new alphabet soup (why so many abbreviations, people? If I wrote this blog in abbreviations, my number of readers would surely decrease from 3 to 0- thanks for reading Mom and grandparents!) and set up my classroom. I was once more optimistic about the school year to come, recognizing that there would be challenges, but naive to their severity. Only after the first week of school in a Cincinnati urban setting did I begin to wonder what I had gotten myself into.
I will sum up my experience at that charter school in one paragraph here. At some point I'm sure I'll speak of it more, but I'm realizing that the less I speak of it, the more sane I am. So here's the digs....
A charter school is basically a public school that receives state funding but gets to manage it in their own way. It is not affiliated with the local school district so there is a certain lack of accountability. I knew the students would be a tough crowd (in the sense of low academics and a high need for progressive, individualized intervention) but I was unprepared for the administrative politics. By Thanksgiving break I was exhausted and at my wit's end. After trying to make the situation better in as many ways as I and my supportive colleagues, friends and family could think of, I resigned. To this day, I feel an incredible amount of guilt at leaving my students. I saw one a few weeks later, and though I expected a hateful cold shoulder, I was hugged so tight I thought my head might pop off my neck. The student's mother said to me "She misses you real bad." Needless to say, despite my insanity, I forged a bond with some of those students in the 5 months I was there, and hopefully planted a few seeds along the way.
When I resigned from the Charter school in December, the only job prospect I had (besides putting my red and khaki wardrobe to good use at Target- next time you see someone wearing a red shirt and khakis ask them about their Target uniform- LOL!) was subbing on a day to day basis at area schools. Subbing might pay the bills (most of them- the important ones anyway, like iPhones and internet access) but it sure doesn't offer insurance and its not what I'd prefer to be doing. Somehow, through a lot of job hunting savy and a stroke of luck, I was interviewed and hired to take a long term sub position teaching high school physical science and chemistry for the rest of the school year, starting January 22nd. The district I now call home has all the paper you could ever want, mostly reliable internet access, and a majority of students who have parents riding their butts to do a decent job in school. As a previous colleague of mine said "You stepped out on good faith and were rewarded for it." Though I may not be here next year (I'm not really certified to teach chemistry OR physical science) I am appreciating the situation I am in and re-learning how to be a sane teacher once more.
So now that we're all caught up, let's talk about Mt. Rushmore. I saw a billboard that said "Vote Now! Obama or Bush as the next face on Mt. Rushmore."
I became instantly frightened, thinking about how uprooting it would be for me to picture 5 faces on Mt. Rushmore instead of the 4 I grew up staring at in the pictures of my history books (the only parts of those history books I actually saw- sorry fabulous history teachers of my past, it wasn't you, it was me!) I wondered in my head why it had come down to Obama and Bush, and wondered aloud to myself in the car, "how had I not heard of this before?!" After some intense internet investigation (they can't post it on the internet if its not true) I have discovered that many people have petitioned over the years to have other people's faces added to Mt. Rushmore. However, since it was a work of art and the artist is now deceased, it seems as though no face will be added until China demands our debt as a nation be paid by adding the faces of every person in Beijing to the Mt. However, I still claim the right to rename my blog, mostly because its outdated and won't cause national turmoil.
I became instantly frightened, thinking about how uprooting it would be for me to picture 5 faces on Mt. Rushmore instead of the 4 I grew up staring at in the pictures of my history books (the only parts of those history books I actually saw- sorry fabulous history teachers of my past, it wasn't you, it was me!) I wondered in my head why it had come down to Obama and Bush, and wondered aloud to myself in the car, "how had I not heard of this before?!" After some intense internet investigation (they can't post it on the internet if its not true) I have discovered that many people have petitioned over the years to have other people's faces added to Mt. Rushmore. However, since it was a work of art and the artist is now deceased, it seems as though no face will be added until China demands our debt as a nation be paid by adding the faces of every person in Beijing to the Mt. However, I still claim the right to rename my blog, mostly because its outdated and won't cause national turmoil.
Now that I have written a book, I'll leave you with my new pump up jam.
http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=5wo7JiiC_A0
Expect more words in this blog in the near future. Spread the word. Use secret signals, it'll make you feel more important.
http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=5wo7JiiC_A0
Expect more words in this blog in the near future. Spread the word. Use secret signals, it'll make you feel more important.
Read on!
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