06.02.09
Posted in Personal at 7:16 pm by JC
My grandmother used to sing me that song whenever I came to visit, and having it sing print out lyrics to me whenever I logged on was like a little hello from the beyond.
Updates On Life:
1. I am MHS’s Teacher of the Year. This is really cool to me. I’ve never even been nominated before, and the fact that I won both the staff and the student vote means more to me than I can express.
2. Beanette is due on Thursday, and I’m ridiculously excited about meeting her. I think that even surpasses the terror that I’ll somehow not be an intrinisic part of Kat’s life anymore after she has a baby. Stupid? Yes. But it’s still there. I’m like the only baby-less person – other than my little sister, who isn’t married (yet) and therefore doesn’t quite count -that’s still plan on having one.
3. Speaking of my sister, we’re on the countdown to her being married and therefore not in town anymore. *tear* In celebration/mourning of her departure, we’re planning a Ju ne chock full of doing all those cool things that your city has to offer than you never do because you live there. Maybe I’ll blog about the coolest bits.
4. I still haven’t written the last chapter of my dern second book. *sigh* If this is going to be the breakthrough novel that changes EVERYTHING, I have to, you know, actually finish it. I got feedback on the first 35-40 pages, though, and it was really good, which is, well, good. And I’m going through the whole dang thing (all 200 pages) and making a few changes based on the critique and it’s logical conclusions and a few cool writing things I’ve learned since writing it the first time. I even have the website planned out and large chunks of the advertising campaign ready to go, I just need to, you know, finish writing it.
5. Scott got a Wii for his birthday. I’m going to partially blame it for my lack of finishing. I’m also going to blame the end of the school year sucking my brains out, as well as spending copious amounts of time working on our house’s addition (Operation Munchkin requiring, in our American, over-bearing and space conscious attitudes, more room).
6. Speaking of the addition, I’m not looking for another job until the house is finished, as Scott and I have declare me the offical contractor. This is exciting, and makes me feel all in charge. On the other hand, theren’s this nagging feeling that the harder I work, the sooner I’ll have to find paying employment. Hmm…. I have this secret (OK, no longer so secret) vision that Scott will be SO thrilled with my working finishing the addition and keeping the house clean and grocery shopping done that he’ll decide having me stay home is the best thing. Otherwise I’m feeling sorta nostalgic about teaching (even though I haven’t stopped yet) and might end up applying back at Manor as like a tutor or secretary or something. Something with not ten hour days and lots of grading and lesson plans on the J drive.
OK, so, I’m not getting taht dern novel finished if I’m typing on my blog, so I should get typing on Open Office instead. Wish me luck!
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01.22.09
Posted in Personal, Politics, Society at 11:22 am by JC
… where you were when you saw the first African American get sworn in as president, and as I had a special experience of it, I thought I’d share. I was with my 3rd period Theater I class, and we turned off the lights and on the television and watched President Obama get sworn in and deliver his address.
My 3rd period has been an interesting experience for me this year because while I have grown accustomed to being a minority in my classroom, this is the first time I have been a minority of one. As a blonde, green-eyed, small town Texas girl, my job has definitely been a humbling learning curve. In third period, I sometimes feel like I am learning a new language, frequently deal with topics that I hadn’t thought would touch a classroom, and initially found myself disliked and distrusted for things out of my control – my skin color, my relative wealth – as well as things in my control – the fact that I am their teacher. But over the year we have found a restless peace, peaceful because we care about each other, restless because, cruel creature that I am, I don’t give free days, expect them to keep their phones packed up (and not in their hands texting), and occasionally make them memorize lines.
But Tuesday was different. The class arrived early and sat silently, occasionally muttering a word of “Amen” or tapping a desk in applause. One sophomore student chose to sit next to me and expressed his hope that Obama would raise a fist in a sign of Black Power and get drunk tonight in celebration. I told him I doubted he’d do either, but we agreed that it was a wonderful day for everybody, and sat together through the celebration, sharing whispered comments which had more to do with equality and hope for the nation and less to do with hand gesture and alcohol. (I think he may have just been trying to get a rise out of me with his first comments. I hope.) I watched our new president get sword in, and watched the rapt faces in my room as they commented on how old Aretha Franklin had gotten and wondered what the string quartet was doing there (although most seemed to agree that it was all good music), and it was amazing to witness the pride everyone had as they finally saw a president who looked more like them take the podium for his inaugural address.
I am honored and pleased to have shared a moment of history with a group of young people who will now be mentioned throughout my life as who I was with when the first black leader of any western nation got sworn into office.
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10.19.08
Posted in Politics, Society at 10:22 am by JC
Texas Education Code, Chapter 21. While researching regulations on planning time, I was reading the Texas education code and found this section between the “Mentors” section and the “Mathematics, Science, and Technology Teacher Preparation Academies” section:
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§ 21.459. BIBLE COURSE TRAINING. (a) The commissioner shall develop and make available training materials and other teacher training resources for a school district to use in assisting teachers of elective Bible courses in developing:
(1) expertise in the appropriate Bible course curriculum;
(2) understanding of applicable supreme court rulings and current constitutional law regarding how Bible courses are to be taught in public schools objectively as a part of a secular program of education;
(3) understanding of how to present the Bible in an objective, academic manner that neither promotes nor disparages religion, nor is taught from a particular sectarian point of view;
(4) proficiency in instructional approaches that present course material in a manner that respects all faiths and religious traditions, while favoring none; and
(5) expertise in how to avoid devotional content or proselytizing in the classroom.
(b) The commissioner shall develop materials and resources under this section in consultation with appropriate faculty members at institutions of higher education.
(c) The commissioner shall make the training materials and other teacher training resources required under Subsection (a) available to Bible course teachers through access to in-service training.
(d) The commissioner shall use funds appropriated for thepurpose to administer this section.
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Yes. In Texas, part of our education code provides a method for teaching the Bible. ‘Cause we’re Texas. Do you think they would let a Wiccan teach that?
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10.09.08
Posted in Personal at 9:08 pm by JC
Today’s debacle I brought on myself. Sometimes I’m just not thinking well. All my students wrote their own conceits in my English class after we read John Donne’s “A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning” – that’s the one where he compares his marriage to one of those math compasses you use to draw a circle where there’s a pointed end and a pencil at the other end, which sounds stupid (the first thing you need for a conceit) and then he explains how their souls are connected and she is his center that keeps him steady and no matter how far he has to travel for work or whatever, they will always lean towards each other and their love will bring him back home – it’s an awesome explanation (second thing you need for a conceit) that just makes me all melty inside.
So, I challenged my senior advanced classes to write their own conceits. Of note, we used a fictional “our”; the poem we were basing this on was about “our marriage”, so a lot of people wrote conceits about “our love” or “our relationship” that is referring to a fictional relationship between themselves and some random person. This is very important to remember as you read. My favorite for the day was “Our relationship is like a big toe. I take it for granted, almost don’t notice it, but if it were broken, not only would I be in pain, but I couldn’t function like myself.” There was also “revenge is like a kiwi – ugly on the outside, but so sweet in the center” and “our love is like whipped cream – so sweet, but soon will dissolve into nothing.” Have you noticed that my kids are brilliant? Yeah, I think so, too.
So, we had a contest for who could come up with the most bizarre conceit in each class. Yeah, the toe won one period. But for my other class, after everybody has announced theirs, one guy says, “I have another one I want to submit instead. Our relationship is like a sandwich.” And I ask him to explain (because, as I said at the beginning of class, if it’s obvious how they’re connected, it isn’t a conceit), and he says, “I’ll leave it up to your imagination,” and I, being an idiot, say, “You have to explain it or it doesn’t count.” So he smiles and answers me, “Our relationship is like a sandwich. It’s better with my meat.”
And the class loses it to laughter. Of course, there’s a couple people trying to explain how it’s possible that that isn’t dirty, but whatever. So I nod and give a short chuckle, because this is actually a very nice guy who’s said this – not like one of the guys who’s normally rude, or I probably would’ve said something – and then move on to take nominations for who’s going to win “craziest conceit” of the class, hoping the uproar will die down. Fat chance. Of course “Sandwich” gets nominated. I turn back to the class and say, “OK, I’m going to write this down on the nomination list, but there is a difference between a joke and a conceit. A conceit needs to be an extended metaphor. Can you extend that?” And a little voice in the back of my head says, “Did I just ask a student to extend his meat?” Snickers, and then another student says, “Of course. It’s better in a footlong.”
I’ve never before cracked up laughing so hard I had to turn around and face the board. And that was my day at school today.
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09.28.08
Posted in Personal at 10:42 pm by JC
I am the worst housekeeper on earth, or close to it anyway. I can admit this. Not with pride; I wish I did a better job, but I don’t mind sharing my lack of talent. But there is something nice about cleaning, once you’re doing it, and I do have dreams about keeping a clean and organized house one day. I have ideas for just how I want to do it. It will never be perfect, but I think I can be an OK housfrau one of these days. I really want to.
But cleaning does give me time to think, and usually its the “cleaning and sorting my life” sort of thinking. I guess they go well together. I always try to juggle too many things in my life, and the problem with that is not that I have too long a list, but that all the things I juggle are HUGE. And all of them are dear to my heart. But somehow in life, the wrong things end up on top, like my job, instead of my home, my family, my friends, my faith. I think that a lot of people make this mistake. Part of me says that if I took care of things in the right order, that everything would run more smoothly, but work is constantly running behind – behind on grading, behind on the play, behind on whatever asinine paperwork I’m supposed to be completing – that the idea of putting it further down my list sounds like a disaster.
I’m the type of person that loves to make personal schedules (work out here, work on next novel here, clean house here), and then can’t stick with them. Obviously I’m not making a schedule I can live with. But cleaning the sink made me feel, for a little while at least, that maybe I could.
I also thought a lot about writing. I have wanted to be a writer ever since I was a kid; I grew up with my nose in a book and a pen in my hand. For the last couple years I’ve finally decided to get serious about it, but, like most worthwhile things, it has been hard. I had given up on being a novelist around the age of 16 because I convinced myself I couldn’t compose an entire novel; they were just too long. But then last January I proved my 16 year old self wrong. Now I’m restructuring, reworking, retooling, re-everything-ing.
It’s interesting; when you tell people you’re working on a novel, one of the many responses is something to the effect of “Do you see all the crap that gets published? You can do it if they can.” This is, of course, meant as a compliment; someone is saying that after assessing my intelligence, they have deemed me more competent than the drivel they’ve read. I do appreciate this, I guess, and it is funny how many writers I know (myself included) that have been comforted by reading a “what-the-hell-was-everyone-thinking-when-they-paid-for-this” novel. But I realized [as I scrubbed a particularly stuck smooch of toothpaste] that that just isn’t good enough. Not only because I don’t want to waste my time tracking down the one agent and editor combo willing to publish garbage, but because I have absolutely no desire for anyone to ever say, “Well did you read that book by JC Garren? Yeah, if she can get published, so can you.” I’m better than that, and my characters deserve more than that.
So, bring on your rejections, your criticisms, and, if you have any, your compliments. I will take it. I may ignore the parts I disagree with, but I want to be good. And that means learning my craft.
I had other thoughts while cleaning the bathtub and the toilet, but I’ll save you from those.
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