chatter from the Library Monkey

Lazy and angst ridden.

Hi, thanks for stopping by, hope all is well with you.

Lazy weekend of sorts — another one I guess. It was kind of progressive. I saw a high school play (Saturday) and went to a presentation (Friday).

The numbers for this are slumping. I am not sure what triggers that, it is done from a year ago.

Went to see “Guys and Dolls” at the high school down the road. Not bad, but not great. I don’t know how much I can tell, but I feel it would have been a little better with a better director… On the other hand there were some really hot moments, so maybe it was a director who just couldn’t get the actors to b good from start to finish. I know one thing, eventually I will be leaving at intermission, if only to avoid the end when the parents make a big deal of giving their kids flowers when the actors take their bow

I’m sore tonight… mostly my shoulders, but some my knees. I didn’t do too much. I did snowshoe, but I haven’t really worked much with the dumbbells, so it isn’t clear. I increased my Cholesterol meds and that is a side affect, I hope that isn’t going to happen. I was thinking I had gotten by without that side affect.

I think I might be asleep tonight before 11 p.m. I hardly ever am asleep before midnight. Some has to do with taking naps

I do a lot of frittering, but it keeps me from thinking about being lonely…

I have so much to say, but never remember what they are…time to get out the notebooke

The Tigers were off and maybe off for a couple days, since the weather forecast is for rain and more rain in Detroit.

Gratitude (3)

taxes yuck

I thought I was done with my taxes, but it is ongoing. I can’t really recommend TurboTaxes after this experience. And if you are using it, it doesn’t make sense to do the electronic submission. First they charge $17.50 for each the fed and state and then another fee of 39 for handing. Give me a break, I bought your program and you you are going to added $64 onto this.

Even that wouldn’t be so bad, but for the fact that I also need to send in a form to say the electronic submission is okay. After all that, why not just print the whole thing out and send it in — dang.

Tough week, but life moves on.

The kids have been fairly antsy. I guess this is the normal spring time thing, but I have it up to the gills.

Lately it has been difficult for me to find three things to list under my gratitude list. I attribute this to several things, To a small degree things are not great, but mostly I have listed a lot of things in my life to be grateful for…I am still grateful for them, but I am not sure if I want to keep re-listing them. I will probably do it though.

I think I will try to see a play tomorrow in the nearby town. The kindergarten teacher’s daughter is in it. “She is the hottest hotbox dancer.” My theatre production produced that play — kids version. I never thought of how provocative ‘hottest hotbox’ is. I think the school in my home is did the same play. I like the play, which is good, since area high schools do it about every eight years.

Nice adventure for me.

The Tigers are two games from the beginning of regular season. This last game on the Big Cats was a 14-5 victory. I didn’t quite realize it but there were two games played this season already — in Japan. With two games left both Detroit and Cleveland are 14-13. With two games left against Houston

Gratitude (3)

Big Weekend, big deal

I am so extra cold today, not sure why. It might actually be colder in here, since it is colder outside.

That is how much I got done in this blog in the last two days. I wimpered away

I did write a poem and do my taxes… I went snowshoeing today, but not much more than that.

Did I mention I hate money. I hate doing taxes and thinking about money in general, but I know I have to do this pretty soon…since I am so bad at it. I got my taxes almost done with Turbo Tax, I need to check on my insurance payment and then I will zip it off via the electronic filing. I didn’t play on doing this this year, but my accountant had a stroke, so I moved up a year.

I am doing horrible at starving. I haven’t eaten too much in the last couple days. I say, ‘too much’ because I couldn’t sleep last night and ate some peanut butter on crackers at about 4 a.m.
I h ad dreams about yelling at kids. It was kind of stressful, it made me wonder if I was going to have a stroke myself. I can’t have a stroke, I have no one to take care of me.

I did several graphics, a few ‘Easter’ oriented ones. I spent a bit of time making some Mr. Wiggles and then a Ms. Wiggles. Sometimes I will do something and then see how I can make the graphic not just slide back and forth, but also to do a little jump, then that is added. Anyhow, I like the wiggles. I also took some pictures when I went for my walk . Then I processed the pix so I could upload them to gather.

I did a little sewing project too. I love the feel of silk around my neck. I have about 12 silk shirts — now about nine. I wear then so much that they wear out, but I love them. So I make scarves — to wear around the house –o with them

The Tigers were rained out today. They played three innings and former Tiger Chad Durbin pitched a three inning no hitter before he was removed. I’m listening to the Dodgers game and it is interesting, I knew that the Dodgers had a losing record in spring training and their opponents (Angels) had a winning record. That is because the announcers were saying the record doesn’t matter. They are right, but the only time they mention it doesn’t matter is when the team has a losing record. One day later and there was a 3-3 tie with Cleveland …the second tie with them this year. The spring training record slipped to 11-12 for both teams (plus several ties). We are about one week away from the first game of the season… I can’t wait.

Gratitude (3)

an interesting week

I am kind of frustrated with being right and not accepted. I go to staff meetings and tell them what is going on in the school, things they tend to ignore or respond as if I don’t quite grasp what is going on. Which is fine, until a couple months or a year later I hear the topic be exactly what I said two months or a year before.

Last year at this time I tried to get the union to understand that there needs to be a better structure for the new teachers because they are just reeling with out support. She didn’t do anything, and our new teacher are more unsupported than ever and our school is suffering.

So a couple things that will be interesting. One we have a couple teachers who for the life of me I can’t understand why they don’t get it. They just can’t seem to grasp upon the simple things. Like if you have been told two times by the principal to make sure you are at the study hall you watch, don’t make him have to tell you a third time. And if you aren’t going to do something, don’t do it to the person you have already pissed off.

The above scenario has happened to people in the library about four times in the last week. I went to a staff meeting a couple weeks ago and asked them to please not send students to the library to be left unattended or in my care — and if you are going to do that, let me know. On Tuesday a teacher did it the second period of the day, when this person showed up I greeted her with: “o ms. ‘begonia,’ how nice of you to show up.”

Unfortunately that was far from the end of it. Two hours later I am teaching a lesson with the fourth graders and the phone rings — it is a kid who wants to use the computers. I told the girl there were open computers but I couldn’t watch her, that I had a class. I walk back to the class and the phone rings and it is a boy with a similar question and I tell him if he wants to bring up a teacher there are computer and hang up, he calls back and tells me I didn’t understand what he was asking. So I hang up on and the phone rings again, but stops, which is good, because I was about ready to rip the phone off the wall.

I write ms begonia an e-mail reminding her that students aren’t suppose to talk on the phone to begin with and that I had a class and four times was too much of an interruption. Half an hour later she writes back and tells me that I didn’t understand what the kid was asking. I fired up another e-mail, that I didn’t send, letting her know there was someone without a clue and it wasn’t me.

Fifteen minutes after the e-mail I composed — in comes another one of ms. begonia’s classes, with out ms begonia. When she finally shows up I make yet another snippy comment: “You have to start showing up with your class.” She had her class and then left without talking to me. Fortunately her mentor was there and I unloaded on the mentor. The irony is much of what ms begonia does so does her mentor, but at least the mentor grasps what the situation is and must have gone and talked to her.

At the end of the day ms begonia comes and sweet as pie telling me that things happen and she doesn’t really apologizes, but gives me reasons and respond with, “it wasn’t just a day, the last couple weeks you have been doing this (and getting worse).” She tells me that there are stragglers and she wanted to stay with them. That doesn’t work with me, because if a fourth grade teacher can line the kids up at the door and get them to the library, she can too.

And I tell her that she should not have students calling me, that I had told the kid if she wanted to bring her teacher up, that was fine. To which ms begonia acknowledges a misunderstanding, but in one of those weird convoluted ways that she is letting the kid off the hook, but blaming them none the less.

One: kids were rude; two: the teacher enabled that to happened and was at fault, but not so much that we ignore rude kids. I wanted to tell her.

And if that isn’t enough, the yearbook advisor, ‘mr wiggles’ is totally off the hook. He has had the staff come in and work unsupervised in the library. He has had to get the other staff members to allow his ‘class’ come in (i.e. skip classes) to work on the yearbook all this week. He has had three quarters of the school year to have the kids work on the yearbook, but not really.

Example: his class meets in the library/computer lab and I notice porgie doing his math homework the whole time. I ask wiggles about it and the teacher says that porgie is getting a 65 because he isn’t doing anything. I ask: “why not a zero?” wiggles response is — “You don’t want me to fail him do you?”

So after a year of letting the students slack, but giving them passing grades, he needs them to work around the clock. AND he isn’t present when they are working. Tonight, at 4 p.m. there are several students in the library and they tell me they don’t have mr wiggles and were planning on working in the lab. I check with the principal to see if he will stay or if they can be alone (I felt bad because he was in the middle of a heated meeting with yet another new teacher and a parent) and he says ‘no.’ So I work a deal out with the students and say I will hang around until 4:45 on the last day before a holiday break….

At one point the students ask if mr. wiggles went home to his local apartment or home home. I told them that at the end of the week he is out of here, and one of the girls says: “yes, as soon as school was out he was in his car.”

I have some compassion for the new staff members (as I mentioned before) because there is so little support from the other staff members (an example of this is ’star’ used to be wiggles mentor and sat next to him during the stafff meetings, she no longer does —- ironically now begonia and wiggles are sitting together).

What is kind of screwy for my school is that not even the ‘good’ teachers are doing a great job

I think I need to leave the country. I can not believe the rhetoric of the far right. There has been some amazing things put out there about Barack Obama, especially in light of what has come out by his minister. First I have to ask when did any of the far right ever accept the freedom of religion — but the one they know is right.

Now the State department h as fired two contractors for looking at Obama’s passport, but in this story state department didn’t know who the were contractors (the men work for). These are the guys that think they can stop the war on terrorism… These are the guys who think they need more laws to let the government spy on the public. Please give me a break. I would just like to know why there folks are glad to step on the foundation the country was founded on.

The Tigers lose again — thank buddha it is only spring training, because this is like 2003

Gratitude (3)