Six seconds of my life

The woman next to me has an answer - the answer.

Excitedly, she raises her arm and her high-pitched, Fran Drescher voice rings out: "Well, this is our brain expert right here. Go ahead, tell him what you told me." Her left hand made contact with my right shoulder in an effort of encouragement and her head nodded wildly, lightly curled hair bobbing in tandem against her forehead. Yes, I told her a little about basic brain structures. Yes, I revealed to her that I majored in psychology. Yes, I told her that I once held a research assistantship with the Idaho Neurological Institute. But this was during our peer time, during our group discussion time. This wasn't during the time that I was trying to show off or stand out. This wasn't information I intended to share with thirty other adults - thirty strangers - with whom I just wanted more than anything to belong, to fit in. I just wanted to be one of them - to be like them - not to be a wild individual capable of standing up to the teacher.

But the teacher, in response to the words "expert" and "go ahead" without a raised hand, but instead with a loud and excited voice, walked three steps in the direction of our table, eyebrows raised, nose pointed at my nose. He said nothing. He merely looked. He looked at me. He expected me to speak. He expected me to share wisdom with the rest of the class, perhaps wisdom he did not already contain or wisdom that would provide him with new information or a new perspective.

As the blood rushed to my head, warming my core and flushing my cheeks it brought a rush of thought to the forefront of my mind. None of it an answer. Nothing brilliant. All of it excuses for why I should not talk.

I don't know what she's talking about. I'm no expert. I was only a psychology major. My natural emphasis was in English - that's why I am here! My assistantship was only for a summer. And I never actually saw any brains. I was stuck in a lab the whole time reading old charts and stuffy medical books. I don't want to speak out. I don't want to speak up. I don't want to show off my knowledge. I just want to fit in, to be part of the crowd today. This is inappropriate. I don't even know what she is talking about. Wait, I can't say that. I can't give him an excuse. Look at him, his eyebrows are raised. He's waiting for something from me. Is he waiting for me to say something stupid? Is he waiting for me to correct him? Is he trying to check my arrogance? My creativity? My experience? My legitimacy? I have to say something. Say it like a student. Include her in the answer. If I include her in the answer, it isn't all about me and I stand out less.

I straightened up slightly in my chair, sweating in my tank top in the ice cold room, and opened my mouth to deliver what I hoped would sound like an eloquntly prepared response.

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BSWP

I recently took a class that was far more like summer camp than a class. Sandra, who mentioned it in a comment below, was my only saving grace in this endeavor. It was three weeks of people crying, talking about their miracle children (who were just normal kids with nothing special to boast), musing about their miracle spouses (who were just normal spouses with nothing special to boast), making "Where are the tissues?" jokes, turning EVERYTHING into some sort of sexual innuendo, and extolling the rejuvenating, inspirational qualities of the class. It was wretched. On the final day of class, it took them two full hours to say good bye to each other. Everyone needed thanked, and hugged and then someone had to take a picture and then someone else had something touching to say and then the box of tissues needed to be found and another "Where are the tissues?" joke erupted among the masses. For so much time during this class, I was acutely aware of the minutes of my life I was wasting - the minutes that I would never, never see again. There was some learning - about three hours a day after the first three days - but even that was touch and go. I took the class because a professor I trust told me that I would absolutely love it and that it would be instrumental in my teaching career. I took it because he somehow had me fooled into thinking it was free - something I learned was contrary to the truth 90% of the way through the class. But alas, it is over and I will never have those three weeks or that $700 again. And if someone sees this "internship credit" on my transcript or resume when I apply for teaching positions, what will I say to them? I will tell them it was inspirational, one of the most influential classes of my college career that has truly shaped the way I instruct a classroom.

I can understand why people like morphine.

Saturday I came down with the worst case of the stomach flu known to man. Since then, my days have been filled with sleeping, Kelly catering to my every need, sleeping, and trying to choke down a 200-per-day calorie diet. Add to that abdominal pains and the gross effects of the stomach flu and you have a fairly accurate idea of my misery lately. Sunday night Kelly and I went to the hospital because I was getting worse and was in such agony with pain and the inability to maintain even the smallest amount of water. They gave me morphine...atop other things that helped. It took away the pain and placed me in a happy, hazy place where I slept in utter content. There were no worries. All I knew was that Kelly was next to me and I was comfortable for the first time in two days. It was bliss.

So the next time you get down on that old woman who lives three houses away because she can't live without her next morphine fix, just understand that she's in a far, far better place than you could ever offer her for that length of time and smile knowing that she's happy and sleepy and has too little energy or care to fret over you.

Radley's brush with the afterlife.

Friday, we went camping with some friends up in Stanley. Saturday afternoon we went mountain biking with said friends on a pretty easy trail. Since it was supposed to be an easy trail we took Radley with us because we always take him to do stuff like that with us. We're always taking him trail running or biking with us and when we play ball with him it's for sometimes more than an hour and sometimes in the direct sun. But Saturday was not a good day for the pup. When we got about a mile into the ten-mile trail, Radley went kaput. We had stopped for a drink so I poured him a drink too. But he was all off balance and his eyes weren't focusing on anything - not even me and Kelly, who were talking to him and telling him to drink water. I told Kelly we needed to get him out of there so Kelly left his bike, picked up Radley, and started running down the mountain. Through our own fear and the help of a friend we were able to get Radley to the bottom of the hill and into the airconditioned car in about ten minutes and both my bike and Kelly's bike into the back of another friend's pickup. Through a scary course of events that included more help from the awesome lady at the emergency clinic in Stanley, my nursing skills and Kelly's mad driving skills, we got Raddogg to a vet who said that he had recovered just fine. The vet said that Radley had heat exhaustion - borderline heat stroke - and that it sounded like he had had a seizure when we were carrying him down the hill. But he promised us that everything with Radley was back to normal and that he was again a healthy functioning dog. After we left the vet's office, Kelly and I realized just how scared we had been because we felt the release of the stress. Radley slept the hour-long drive back to the camp site and Kelly and I breathed for the first time since Rad fell. He's precious, our boy.

For ethnic diversity in Boise, visit Lucky Peak on a Sunday in June.

Yesterday, Kelly and I rode our bikes up to Lucky Peak and back. Afterward, Kelly looked at Google Earth and decided that that means we could have ridden to my mom's house and back, distance-wise. It is about 11 miles each way. The ride was awesome. It took an hour each way - an hour that had us traversing some of the valley's most beautiful sights. We found out new things about this path we'd traveled so many times by car and saw old things in a new way. With the sun above us all day, we pedaled and pedaled. We stopped at Lucky Peak, at lunch and ventured into the freezing water before heading home. It was quite the workout and so enjoyable in so many ways.

Oh, and the whole point of this was to say that there were more groups of non-American ethnicities than at any other place in Boise that I have ever seen. There were Spanish-speaking families, families from India, and one family speaking perhaps Portugese. There were people from all over the globe at Lucky Peak yesterday. It was so wonderful to hear so many different languages and see such varied skin tones and think "I'm still in Boise."

Summer 2006

So far, I would characterize this summer as taking place at the shelter. I've been working so much that I'm starting to feel like I should just move in. I'm at a point with it, though, that I'm stressed out and have told my supervisor to cut my shifts back before I go looney.

Last week, Kelly and I went camping with Radley. It was our first official family camping trip. We camped in Stanley in the Sawtooth Mountains. It turns out that the night we were up there, Stanley recorded the coldest temperature for the entire nation. I suppose that's why the night was more about staying warm than sleeping and why our little shivering puppy climbed up between us to sleep. And why we let him.

I'm currently taking a class with teachers from across the state learning how to be better teachers. I'm the youngest person in the class, which is bizarre for me because I'm seldom the youngest anywhere I go. I'm usually in the same age group or I'm older. I grew up as the oldest sibling. I work with teenagers. In this class, the next oldest person is at least ten years older than me, and some people are 30 to 40 years older than me. It sort of makes me feel awkward, like they're all looking at me as though I'm one of their students, or at least in the same age group. I feel like they don't take me seriously and don't expect that I have anything to add to a conversation about teaching. Kelly says it's good for me to be out of my comfort zone a bit. I just want to learn and have the class be over.

Parents are big, fat liars.

I'm not just talking about my parents here – I'm talking about all parents.

First of all, parents tell their kids that a fat, happy man in a red suit will bring them every material possession their little heart desires if they behave. Yes folks, I'm talking about Santa Claus. The idea of it all is a little scary, if you think about it. There's this old man who watches all the children of the world, ensuring that their behavior warrants such gifts as remote control cars and Barbie mansions. Does that make Santa a pedophile or God? And the stories parents create surrounding the jolly fellow! When I was about five or six we lived in an apartment building. This created problems for me, since in our apartment building we had no chimney and in every single Santa story, he lands on the rooftop and slides down the chimney with his bag of goodies. My father, always quick on his mental feet, concocted a tale to calm his stressed and worried daughter. He told me that those stories were written a long time ago before apartments existed and that with the development of time Santa had to be more proactive about getting to children in places where chimneys were not installed. And so, Santa started carrying keys to everyone's apartments. Then I asked him how Santa knew which key went to which apartment because that is a LOT of keys to keep straight, even just for our complex. This is when my father ceased to be logical about it and resorted to the cure-all answer for kids: the keys are magic keys.

Skipping over the lot of the Easter Bunny, the Tooth Fairy and all Disney-reincarnated princes and princesses with magic springing eternal, here's another big parent lie: hiccoughs mean you're growing. I remember growing quite stressed when hiccoughs came to afflict my spasming abdomen because I did not want to grow that much. I had fearful daydreams about being this incredible expanding woman whose height would rival that of the Eiffel Tower. I would stomp around the world a complete anomaly, as people ran for their lives a la King Kong films and the media guys would scramble for a good shot of me eating men in three-piece business suits or trying to nestle myself length-wise across the Golden Gate Bridge for an afternoon nap. It didn't dawn on me until later - probably when I was about six or seven - that adults hiccough too and that if hiccoughs actually meant you were growing, we would all be gargantuan, making my crater-causing exploits around Europe a completely normal event.

How about the good ol' Your Face Will Freeze If You Make That Face Again ploy? Or my personal favorite, the Be Nice To Your Brother Or One Day He’ll Grow Up To Be Bigger Than You And Then He’ll Be Able To Beat You Up And Then You’ll Be Sorry warning? And I'm sure that, if polled, the majority of people my age would remember being told to eat the heels of the loaf of bread because "they're good for you. Those two pieces have the most vitamins." Which is a load of crap, by the way. The ends of the loaf of bread have no more or no less vitamins than the rest of the loaf of bread - including the crusts on the outside of the inner, most delicious part of the bread. Besides, to all parents who thought that telling kids to eat something because it has more vitamins would make that food item more delectable: You're nuts. The ONLY thing that makes vitamins at all appealing to kids is when they come in pastel colors and are shaped like Flintstones characters. In which case, give me a Betty Rubble any day. But the browned outer part of a loaf of bread? Come on. You can be more creative than that.

If anyone reading this has some examples of Lies Parents Tell, please share them here - whether you’re remembering your parents' lies or you're a parent coming clean on some of your own lies. I'm not a parent yet, but I'm sure I'll tell my future kids plenty of lies. I'm a big fat liar today as it is. I won't tell my children the lies around holidays (Santa, the Easter Bunny, etc.) or about religion (down with Judeo-Christian righteousness) or about vitamin stores in bread crusts, but I'm sure I'll develop a few good ones. Maybe I'll tell my children they were adopted and that they should start looking for their birth mother. Or maybe I'll tell them that if they ride a bike too fast they'll hit the speed of light and find themselves on Mars and that the people who live on Mars are evil cannibals who like to feast on the eyeballs of earthlings. I don't know...Just a start.

Drinking Red Bull at 3 a.m. makes me nauseous.

I don't even know if I spelled that right. Usually, when I want to say nauseated, I say nauseated because I'm unsure of the spelling of nawshus but I don't care enough to look it up.

I think that people should not own guns. I think that if people do own guns they should be kept unloaded out in the garage or on a shelf in the shed. It cracks me up when people in the country keep loaded guns under their beds so that they can protect their home if necessary. I live in the middle of the city, not far from downtown, and have never wished there was a live rifle under my bed. How many people break into homes in the country? I would venture a very, very low guess. Criminals are lazy. Why hit one house in the middle of nowhere rather than four or five apartments in one night? Besides, people in the country aren't usually rich enough to leave Granny's antique pearls lying next to their HDTV and a Rolex resting on a wad of cash. I also think that people should not own deer-and-antler hat racks.

More people should ride bikes around town. It's awesome exercise and it's way, way cheaper than visiting Chevron three times a month. We're down to filling our car about once a month. I would ride my bike to work, but I work really odd hours, making one trip inevitably in the dark on a poorly-lit, five-mile path.

Along the lines of being active, Kelly and I are keeping up with this lifestyle change to eat better and to exercise a bunch. I have lost a solid seven pounds and a couple inches all over. I'm starting to notice other women's arms and how it's rare for women to have great arms. Usually they're flabby and not toned. Mine are almost visibly tone even when I'm not flexing. I've lost my muffin top and the little dimples on the backs of my thighs are disappearing. Kelly's belly is nearly non-existent and he's increased his shoulder and arm size so much that when he went in for a tux fitting today the guy told him that they don't have anything that will correctly fit his large shoulders and small waist. It's super easy to trim down and the payoffs are amazing!

We get to go to Portland this weekend and Rex has already promised a trip to the world's best Mexican restaurant. I've been wanting to eat there for about a month now - since we started planning for the trip.

Nighttime Bike Ride

Kelly and I attended a show near downtown tonight (Thanks, Kathy!) to which we rode our bikes. Then we decided to ride around downtown for a little while. I have to admit that at first I was not at all excited about the extra riding. I slept for about four hours last night and was up this morning at five. I'm tired. But, Kelly was thrilled about a little downtown exploration so I went along trying to let him think that I was looking forward to it as much as he was.

It wasn't long, though, before I became equally enthralled with the bike ride. We rode close to the overflowing Boise River, which is, I think, still at flood capacity for the first time since (I'm trying to remember from old news reports I heard weeks ago when the flooding began so don't hate me if my statistic is wrong) the 70s. We crossed a pedestrian-only bridge that I have never before traversed - mainly because I have been so dependent on my car for so long - and passed places I have only ever before passed at 30 miles an hour. Downtown I saw new shops I never knew existed, old shops I would like to visit again, and people all over having a good time. I felt cracks in the pavement in a way I have never felt before, because to me on my bike above the rubber tires, they were entirely new cracks. The night air was warm with a cool edge to it and periodicaclly the sky would light up with a flash of lightening, signaling the storm the weather forecasters predicted this morning would come and that I have doubted all day.

Tonight I felt alive. It made me feel alive to see my city in a new way, to be out carelessly riding with Kelly, aiming only for around the corner. Sometimes I think I strive too much to get somewhere, without taking the time to just live. Tonight I lived. I loved. I felt. I sensed. I didn't worry about being tired or wanting to take a shower or being fearful of riding near traffic. I let all that go, opened my eyes and breathed. It was a breath that filled me with itchy-eye allergens, but filled me nonetheless. Now I am full...and ready for a few drops of Visine and a good night's sleep.

I rode my bike home slowly today.

I enjoyed the feeling of the slight breeze mixing with the setting sun. I felt the sway of the bike with the grain of the sidewalk and the thrust of my pedals. My semester - the semester I never thought would end - is finally over, with the exception of grading, which will take all of 20 minutes and is something I find infinitely more enjoyable than writing papers or taking tests.

My computer and I will be going through a trial separation soon. It won't last long - only a couple days, I'm sure - but there will be a small separation. Lately, I have been feeling chained to it, as though it is my only friend in the world and is the only place for me to be. Except that it has been a matter of necessity rather than want...which is why we're going to have a trial separation. Our relationship has just gotten to be too much for me lately - too much to handle. There are too many obligations and expectations with my computer. I'm starting to feel like it won't allow me contact with my friends any more and like it's dictating how I spend all my time. Pretty soon it will start telling me what to wear and what not to say and will get pissy about our level of physical affection in public and I don't know if I can take all that, honestly. So for a few days, I will just steer clear, spending my time doing other things, things that don't involve my computer. I think that when we get back together again we'll have a different understanding, a new definition of the boundaries of our relationship. I have hope.

Lucky 13

If anyone is looking for a great pizza spot in Boise, Lucky 13 is the place to be. It's in Hyde Park across from Little Richard's and features some of the tastiest pies around.

I'm sick of complaining about school.

I feel like there isn't a whole lot else going on right now, though.

I don't seem to have a witty remark about things in my day any more sometimes. I think maybe I've lost my edge, like there's no more edge left to be had.

What if that is true? What if there are no more witty and thoughtful remarks left in me? What if I am destined to be an old, boring woman for the rest of my life with no spunk left in me? What if that started at the ripe old age of 24 and eight months? How did I let myself get to this point?

Will this generalize to what I can respond to? Will I cease to find humor in classics such as A Modest Proposal and South Park? How will I spend the remainder of my days? Being a literature teacher will surely have its drawbacks on this one. I will no longer be able to recognize the sarcasm in a Brautigan poem or the poignancy in a Faulkner novel or the social commentary in a Doors album. My classes will be a drag for students. I will be the teacher they warn future generations about in yearbooks and on myspace. "Don't take that Mrs. H," they'll say. "She just doesn't get it any more."

Soon, I shall spend my days searching for that which I am certain I once had. Perhaps I'll find it under the couch or at the bottom of the bread bag all covered in crumbs. While I look I will be lost in a frenzy of uncertainty and confusion. I might do things like dress like Britney Spears and go out downtown with my cooler-than-I'll-ever-be friends or maybe I'll start sleeping on benches in the library.

In a pinch, I could rip off something from the Boise Weekly writer Bingo Barnes and try to pass it off as my own. I doubt anyone would notice and I bet he wouldn't care. He could charge me royalties for writing term papers and daily scripts and I could plead temporary insanity and he could take pity on my eternal soul and lift the couch as I peer under, looking for my commentary on life. Without help, I'll probably be able to write about nothing again except my dog or the fact that I spent all day sitting on my porch or the aggrivations I have with school. But that's boring...so I'll keep searching...and searching...

When I find my commentary on life again, what will I do with it? Will I even know how it works any more? Or will it be rusted with neglect and stiff with unuse? Will it talk back to me, telling me I don't know anything and that it wants to be its own person or will it sit obstinately, refusing to budge despite my pleas and dark chocolate bribes? Will it have shrunk because of sitting still for so long? Or will it have grown on its own, without my help or awareness?

*sigh*

So much to consider. In the meantime, I'm ready for school to be out and my dog is really cool. I would spend more time outside, but I have a mess of work to do at my desk and it's too cold outside still to really enjoy myself. Soon, I'll be on my stomach in the living room, though, peering under all the furniture.

Ideas

I have had some great ideas lately that I think are ways to solve everyone's problems. Or, at least, some people's problems. Here are just a few of my brilliant plans lately.

I think that Kelly should write to random politicians throughout the country telling them that if they do not send him $1000 by June 1 then he will share conclusive evidence with the politicians' spouses that the politician has cheated within their marriage. Now, the particulars of this plan are not completely worked out. We would, of course, need to figure out how the $1000 should be mailed because it needs to be done in a fashion that will not let the feds trace it back to Kelly. Cash is a bad idea...Maybe a money order. If Kelly were to obtain a pseudonym and a fake ID to match, he could cash the money orders at one of those check cashing places. Sure, they would take a cut, but it's money that isn't Kelly's to begin with anyway. Also, there's the idea that politicians are public figures and their extramarital affairs have probably already been made public, so Kelly may want to target CEOs instead - basically, other rich people who have extra time on their hands, therefore giving them the ability to have an affair. Then there's also the factor of how many letters to send out. I think they should all be mailed at the same time and done only once. Sending out too few may not yield a good return, but sending out too many could make him suspicious. So if he sends them out nation-wide, I think that he could get away with sending about 200. Of course, that also depends on how many CEOs there are in the country. I haven't done my homework on that one. As you can see, this plan is still in the planning stages.

We have a friend who sells stuff at the Saturday market downtown every Saturday morning. We saw him there last week and he said that being there meant that he couldn't have any late Friday nights. I told him that he should just keep his wares in his car and sleep on a park bench when he was out late on Fridays. He could dress in tattered clothes so everyone thought he was a bum and then no one would bother him. In the morning he could just throw on his selling clothes and be off. It would save him so much time in transportation alone.

I think that people should be born into a commune and given a stellar education. Then, at nine years of age, people could apply to live in whatever country they wanted. Each country would run on a fairly socialist system and have quotas to meet for population spread. For instance, they could only have a certain amount of wealth, a certain percentage of women and men, a certain percentage of each race and disability and IQ. You get the picture. At first, people may not want to live in places like Somalia because of the natural predisposition to thinking of it as a bad place to be, but after all the previously developed countries were full then people would realize that they had no choice but to live in Somalia and so they would and then they would realize that it wasn't such a bad place to be and eventually people who detest harsh winters and like open spaces and the challenge of creating something out of sand would start applying there in mass numbers. Of course, the applications would be reviewed by a panel of educated people - mixed races, mixed genders, mixed sexual orientations. This system would also discourage people from having children for the sake of laziness of not using protection, but to propagate the species. When a child is born that child is immediately transported to a commune - probably there will be one on every human life-bearing continent - where, as previously mentioned, that child remains until the age of nine. On that child's ninth birthday that child can submit the application and that child will be placed with a family within two months. This way, children can only go to families who want them and can support them. I think that this system would increase racial inter-marriage and decrease prejudice on more than one plane.

I'm currently developing a plan to get Kelly to start doing all my homework for me. He turns me down when I ask him, but I'm pretty sure I can work something out that he can't resist. I may offer to make him bacon in return or find someone to sit and rub his feet all day. I'm still working on the incentives, but the idea is golden.

The sun is shining today, but I'm inside.

I sat on the porch for some time this morning so that I could feel the goodness of the sun soaking into my skin, but now I am at my stupid computer writing that stupid lit review. While I was on the porch the wind blew slightly and ruffled our wind chime from Belize, which made me think of walking around San Pedro in my white skirt and bikini top with my hair pulled up and the hot sun keeping me company. I felt so good on that trip - no worries, constant relaxation, and time that seemed to slip evenly by, without my awareness. I thought of Robin, our homeless escort, and the hammock on our porch that went crazy in the wind, and sipping Belikins on speedboats. I think perhaps I'll stay there in my mind while I write this lit review.

Huh

So the end of the semester is upon us. Kelly told me the other day that he has been dreading this period since Christmas. Last night I turned in one humongous project and Tuesday I'll turn in another. When I'll find the time to work on that one...? Who really knows? Tonight I have a meeting for this summer institute I'm doing and on Saturday morning I have another meeting for the same thing, followed by a full shift at the shelter. Maybe I'll start it - and hopefully finish it - Sunday. Right now it's just like one thing is stacked on top of another...and another...and another...

In other news, I think I may get my gifted education endorsement. Evidently, there isn't a GT program in Boise at the secondary level. Well, there is, but it's new as of this fall. And there are no gifted English teachers. I heard a lecture last night on gifted students and it was like my professor had done a case study on some of the intricate parts of my personal life and delivered a three and a half hour lecture on me to my class. So I talked to him about it and he told me about the developing GT secondary ed program here in Boise. I've been worried about the job outlook lately, because English teachers are a dime a dozen in this country. I've tried to do things that will set me apart as an English instructor and I've tried to make friends with some influential English teachers in the valley, but there's only so much I can do - especially when it comes to the matter of basic job openings. BUT...if the gifted program is only now being started at the secondary level - and I'm talking differentiated instruction, not just lame old AP classes - and there are no English teachers in the field yet, then that looks really good for me. I used to think that I wanted to teach the AP classes, but then I realized that AP classes are lame. You just give everyone a lot of work and expect that they can perform like college freshmen (so that when they really are college freshmen their composition teachers can think "Oh, great, this kid thinks he knows everything. Fun.") and prepare them to take a test. Wow. Plus, in order to teach the AP class you have to put in your time - which means that I won't see that class until I'm 50. People want that class because it's easy to teach. I have decided that I don't want that at all. I don't want the easy class where all students need is academic support and college guidance. I want my students to challenge me. For that purpose, I have been thinking about perhaps getting my special ed endorsement. I like the idea so much of differentiated instruction and keeping everything straight and giving each individual kid exactly what he or she needs to succeed in school, my class and life. But my life feels like time moves slower when I work with kids in special ed. I have the know-how and the patience and the drive, but I think that time actually slows to a barely beating pulse. I just never really knew until last night that AP and GT were two totally and completely different things and how exciting working with gifted ed could be. Actually, the concepts of working with special ed and with gifted ed are the exact same - as are some of the methods - just the pace and work load are different, really. I'm going to be in touch with my professor and try to observe one of his classes at the elementary level before making this decision, but the more I think about it, the more excited I get. The problem that has been in Boise, and the reason our GT program is just now developing, is that there is very little government funding for gifted education. Kids in special education cannot do mainstream work, so their parents have thrown fits about it and gotten specialized instruction. The problem with the gifted community is that they CAN do mainstream work, even though it is severely below their intellectual capacity, so they don't pose a problem. It's odd to want a higher, more stimulating challenge. And by gifted programs in Boise, I'm talking six year olds who attend junior high. Like I said - truly gifted. IQ of 140+. Plus, what adult wants to provide funding and programs for some first grader who can tell them more than they ever wanted to know about nuclear fission? Adults have this weird pride thing that they just can't get over sometimes. I see this as something that could be such fun and could really be challenging in a number of different ways. *sigh* That's a lot of random thoughts. I'm still looking into it. Right now I feel a little overwhelmed about it.

When I worked last I had one of our residents tell me that he may be in my English class next semester. He's getting his GED this summer and since he's so young and is hispanic and part of DHW he can get a ton of scholarship money. I really, really like this kid and it felt good that he remembered that I teach English 101 and that he would at least consider wanting to be in my class.

I need to get working on my lit review. I hate doing lit reviews. But first, I need to go eat the yummy-smelling breakfast Kelly is making me. You know, even though he says he has been dreading this time of the semester, he has been great with support and helping me and bringing me snacks and tea and reminding me that it's almost done and that the semester is almost over and that this is all worth it. Without him, I would probably be a basket case. People say that marriages have a high percentage of failure while one spouse is in graduate school (I want to say it's somewhere around 80%, but I could be making up that statistic), but I don't see that happening with us. Rather, graduate school is strengthening our marriage and the love and support and appreciation we maintain in our marriage.

Easter

Yesterday was Easter at the H House. We had my family over for a big meal, egg dying and an egg hunt. I think that the whole thing went really well. Everyone seemed to have a good time and enjoy the food and the kids went nuts over scavenging for plastic eggs in our yard.

I really appreciate the ability to have family over for large meals. My whole life is punctuated by visiting different family members' homes for holiday gatherings and thinking to myself that one day that would be me in the kitchen pulling a delicious meal out of the oven for everyone to ooh and aah over and thank me for as they left my home hours later. Yesterday was one of those days for me and even though I was exhausted then and I'm exhausted still, I loved it. Maybe I won't love it so much when I've been doing it for twenty years, but I suspect that I will.

Blanket and Slippers

All I want to do these days is lounge around the house in my tee shirt and panties with my slippers on (that I stole from Kelly) with a blanket across my lap, reading and dozing intermittently. It isn't that I'm depressed. I think I'm just sick of doing everything else. I don't want to be on time for a class or for work. I don't want to iron my clothes (or sweetly ask Kelly to do it for me, knowing that he always does anyway) for school or plan my next meal or put stuff in my backpack. Besides, I'm starting to like the way my legs look the more time we spend at the gym and it's kind of fun to not feel compelled to hide them under pants all the time. Plus, they look great when they end at the floor in my slippers. They look great when they end in my cool new black grown-up heels, but the heels just aren't as comfy and when I wear them while lounging on the couch I'm always afraid I'm going to scratch or put a hole in the fabric. When school is over and everything is turned in, I plan to spend at least one whole day in my tee shirt and slippers, reading and dozing intermittently. I also plan to get a facial and perhaps a pedicure. Then, I will come home and take off my pants - because that's my new comfy way to be these days - and sit around smiling and feeling fresh and renewed in my skin. And Kelly will tell me that I'm so lighthearted and free-feeling whenever I come home from the spa and that perhaps I should go there every day. And this time, I will more than only slightly consider it.

These are the numbers of my life...

ONE loving man who follows through and reminds me why.

THREE jobs that ebb and flow, keeping my date book filled and the bank account fresh.

ONE fun and excited puppy who loves playing ball more than he loves anything else on this entire planet and who is good at cuddling, even if he isn't as little and as easy to squeeze onto your lap as he was just a year ago.

TWO rockin' good years with Kelly as of tomorrow.

EIGHT students - two of whom have been MIA for a month - and all looking forward to the end of the semester as much as me.

TWENTY-FIVE seventh graders who I will miss when I stop going to West in a couple weeks.

ONE seventh grader who always notices my shoes and last week asked about my high arches - he evidently has flat feet.

THREE siblings with whom I spent my weekend flying kites, eating ice cream and bowling.

ONE sibling who is now a year older.

TWO long-time friends I haven't seen in a year and a half, but will spend time with again this evening.

I'm Having a Baby!

I found this website that conducts pregnancy tests using remote sensor technology rather than pee-on-stick tests and boasts a 99.9% accuracy rate. So, of course, I took the pregnancy test.

It came back positive.

Here's a copy of the birth cirtificate. Part of this really cool test is that it can instantly tell you who the father is, too. Which is nice because I sleep around A LOT.



If you would like to check the status of your womb, click here.