elephants and apricots

Teaching Journal

2009-09-09T21:48:00.001-07:00

9.9.09

I grace the balancing act of teaching. Many things prove lovely and challenging.

Lovely: when I can care for and encourage my students with the wholeness of my heart.

Challenging: when students are tired or having bad days, especially my “special” ones, or when their parents are evidently struggling to have their needs met, making it very difficult for them to meet the needs of their children.

My fears: that I’m not challenging my students enough, that my lessons are not structured enough for my "special" ones, that I am a bit too mean sometimes, that they are making fun of me when I turn to write on the whiteboard, that I am driving my principal nuts, that something I do will turn them off to my class or my subjects forever, that their lives are so broken and scant that they will struggle forever to recover from the hardships of American poverty.

And then, there are the bright lights and wide spread wings gleaming and swooping through our school at every turn. The students who spring their hands up to act out a part, or ask questions that provoke mystery and critical thought. The teachers who do good deeds and smile; who debate and believe in what we are trying to accomplish. The volunteers who devote hours of labor and love.

It’s as if we are pioneers, molding uncharted territory with passion and tried strength. Some moments I feel my legs physically collapsing, or my brain depleted of all creative and intellectual power; when all I hope for is that the effort put forth is sufficient to teaching these students something. With standards rigorously imposed (meaning well, but forever daunting and ominous) I create lessons that are aligned with what the state of California deems to be key. I fear that the intention of the standards to prepare students for college may, in some way, be fluked. I do my best, but in this country, or perhaps throughout the world, can your best ever feel good enough when so much is at stake?

Transfer

2009-07-31T15:56:00.001-07:00

When I feel your mood on me, indigo,
I sip the wound
Slowly
Through my yellow eyes.
I cannot begin to imagine
Your strange faults
And grooves.

Raw bats swoop through
The dusty hollow of your
Mind and mine.
Slapping words making
Faint music.

“Sick and tired, ma’am?”
[“WRONG,” screaming
Screeching
Agentless.]
Sour notes, rarely tasteful.
Shores of sharp
Sand weaving into
Our fearing parts.

I do not care.
I do not care.
I do not care.

Away

2009-03-02T11:36:00.000-08:00

Having a wine glass on the way to the doctors office
I notice the pain of
Focus.
It is a tarnished glass
Messy with specs
Trickling down my mediocre
Throat.
Melancholic music is covered up till
Many men are singing.
Liven my mood, crank it down to the
Synpases.
Service trucks line my street because dollars
Mean
Convience.
Sorry distrust, with no ability to exist independently from
Them. All
Those gates, rolling inward, outward
Smartless.
Can we frolick a park, smutty with poop
and dogs?
Will you take me, authentically, away to way.

Lessons learned...

2009-01-04T18:22:00.000-08:00

In reverse order,

2& a half weeks of refrigeration make raspberries shrink to pea-size

the thousands of sheep off highway 5 make it beautiful

skiing without poles for a day is awkward

advertising was the most glamorous job in the '50s

even a CHP officer looking at my license believes I'm from Walnut Creek

never drive down a steep icy hill into a highway unless you want to crash

the cops in Incline Village allow 4 smooshed in a backseat, as long as we've got no warrants out for our arrest

if you're going to use the term "shit show" more than 100 times a day, beware of the mess you'll get into tomorrow

coiffeur is not pronounced coiff-wa, but this doesn't matter to some Americans

a junta is a coup, and I suck at Boulderdash

the Bay is peaceful
New Years Eve isn't the same without a partner in crime

it's crucial to organize your things when you're going to 5 different destinations unless you want to be called a "shit show" by your brother over & over again

spending time with ailing grandparents is the definition of precious

love of bicycle riding runs in my genes
preserving memories for those without memory is important to me
Canadian men's use of the term "buddy" and "oh yeah" makes me warm
fire and snow get right to my heart
friends make wreckless travel worthwhile

fl-yen

2008-12-14T23:28:00.000-08:00

Bel Air

Rossland, Canada

Rancho Mirage

Phoenix

San Francisco

Incline Village

Oakland

Bel Air

Winter break::: I cannot wait to cuddle my loved ones

poopi poetry

2008-12-14T23:17:00.000-08:00

record player, fresh squeeze
fabric flowers laced with age

couch feathers smushing my
cushionless butt

just me; hours upon hours of
me

popcorn devoured, vanilla roibos tea
fingers buttery

Rocky in white, on the floor
Desirous of a camera

Or a bosom like
yours

this american life
pandora thumbs up
& charlie rose urgency

One last night

in my bungalow

Jealous, like every other
sunday of peapods
Families with fresh babies
but all I contain
Is me.

Harsh

2008-10-26T22:55:00.000-07:00

If you are perceived as harsh and want not to be perceived this way, how can one change?

Limiting words?

Filtering thoughts?

I believe the answer may be a revolutionary change in one's perceptions of all people and their idiosyncrasies.

Could I achieve this revolution?

How?

Hope-tober

2008-10-22T21:36:00.000-07:00

A handful of months ago it seemed to me that Hope was a chill-worthy word. Every time the word Hope echoed through the media, goosebumps danced upon my skin. It may have been audacious, but people were banning together around this most powerful and Pandoraic word.

Since then, debates and hate, apathy and passion, mud and guts have smudged and scraped the Hope campaign. Today I was at Wendy's Tortas in East L.A., down the street from Gates Elementary where I'm stationed as a "pre-service teacher." This eatery seems to take pride in nearly pristine white tables, a glass-case displaying candy-bars and granola, and their large, flat screen T.V. While eating my lunch a group of four men were engaged in Spanish Language TV: a Jerry Springer-like show, the news in which a story of a mother drowning her baby and a Latino man getting beaten up by the cops were head lining, and Barack Obama speaking at a convention.

I ended up starting a conversation with Wendy's grandpa, the owner, about who he hopes will become president of the country. I decided to ask him who he planned to vote for. His response was, "I'm not enabled the right to vote."

"If you were, who would you choose?"

"Obama, I would vote for Obama. But I'm afraid. I'm afraid if he gets elected someone might shoot him. Were you around here during the L.A. riots? If Obama were killed, the Blacks would be affected. The L.A. riots were bad, people stealing and breaking everything. That could happen again. It would happen again."

I nodded my head while listening to this man's fears about the future of our country and his community, thinking now how Obama's campaign of having the "audacity to hope" responds to this very world-view. I walked on down the sidewalk, passing the neighbors' eviction notice, some graffiti, and a pungent smell coming from a dumpster, to the colorful school yard of Gates.

Once in class it happened that the curriculum for the day was to read two newly published children's books; one entitled "My Dad, John McCain," the other "Barack." Both books spoke of the protaganists' struggles to develop their identities, and their will to serve America. Yet while "McCain" focused on being one deserving man in a line of soldier men, "Barack" focused on having many places to call home, and all of them contributing to feelings of struggle and hope.

It was incredible how powerful these books seemed. I can only imagine reading them to a class of American youth, empowering these students to devote a critical eye to each planned page. By the time I am through being immersed in this intense educational community of hopeful justice for all, I hope to be teaching in a classroom that makes strides, in part because of me and my hope, and in part because they have a genuine African American leading their world.

Terror

2008-09-04T14:26:00.001-07:00

Last night's sleep consisted of a terrorizing dream. I was running from and hiding from a bladder-cringing terrorist organization. It was one of those persistent dreams that continue even after you've awoken and told yourself, my dear self, it's just a dream. For this, I blame the

REPUBLICAN party. When I hear your taunting lies about the Liberal's inexperience in protecting our country, I think of the thousands of American soldiers who've died for the purpose of YOUR exorbitant war, and the many more thousands who've come home crazed by dishonor and pointlessness. Is not providing these soldiers adequate mental services what you call protection? I think of

GEORGE who got us into a war that only the superficial intelligence believe serves a purpose, because they are making top profits off of a battle that sucks resources from the GOVERNMENT you want to downsize.

Downsize your plastic reputation and say something more than an ad slogan. Say something meaty with guts and blood-veins that the American people can open their senses to instead of forcing us to close them. Don't elect a robotic war-vet with so many homes he can't count them, and a mother of five who likens herself to a pit-bull (what a caring motherly quality, especially for the baby with special needs) NOT because of their questionable characters

BUT because all they do as nominees of the Grand 'Ol Pooparty is inject more unsubstantiated fear into the blinded or careless or hording or selfish people who believe our president shouldn't aim towards

PEACE. Our president shouldn't lessen taxes for the 95% of Americans who serve our country at grass-roots levels and deserve a break. Our president shouldn't address the myriad terrors that cut into the lives of Americans on United States soil everyday. Our president should be a BIG MAN who believes he's the patriarch our country needs to fight off the boogiemen with dark skin and Islamic beliefs because if we don't, oh gee Daddy, oh Daddy, I'm scared of them big, bad Daddy.

You know what I'm scared of? Going into my first year of teaching with more of the same opportunistic, manipulative, conniving, condescending politics that have ruled our country for the past eight years. I'm terrified for the children to come through adolescence with an understanding that our government doesn't care about the fact that companies are allowed to poison people for a profit, or Mommy doesn't get help because she can't afford it, or advertising agencies are allowed to sell us stuff that's really quite bad for us, or our president doesn't know the least bit about us because he's too busy making sure his investments and his big-time Daddy friends come first. They ARE like

PIT BULLS, children of tomorrow. And unless your ready to stand on your own, hope you realize how instinctual and thoughtless of an attack a dog knows how to make.

summer swimming

2008-08-23T00:31:00.000-07:00

Listen to this. I'm a little blond girl in a tye-dyed blue one-piece dipping in and out of the pool like it's no ones business. Plunging deep into the eight feet with all that banana colored body hair going --woosh-- upon my tan skin. Mom's peering through the bay window in the kitchen and Eric's upstairs pumping Queen on the boom-box and there's nothing better than our big backyard hole with gallons and gallons of chlorinated liquid. I dive in from the edge of the deep end and I dive in from the mini-waterfall pouring from the spa. I jump into the side and swim across back and forth with no breaths. I stroke to the 3-foot shallow end, push my body down to the cement floor, and pretend to have an under-water tea party with my pinky up. I submerge my head beneath the glassy top of the pool and screammmmmm.

I can be anyone under the water. I can be a queen or a mermaid or a fish. I can be a professional diver or a synchronized swimmer or a cowgirl. I can be tall and short, bloated and thin, hearing and deaf.

But when I get out of the water and towel off enough so that I won't make a slip'n'slide of the pink tile inside Mom says I can't be a little girl with green hair.

So we go into the downstairs shower that only ghosts really use and she slivers open a can of tomato paste. The bloody insides of the aluminum cup are plopped wretchedly on my liming head. Tomato poop smears everywhere; it's in my armpits and ears, painting scary signs on the white tile walls. I squeal and cry and laugh and jiggle. This, Mom, is the goopiest, messiest, craziest situation we've ever gotten me into. She tells me to rinse and rinse and rinse some more but rinsing isn't cutting it against the red pasty paste so finally she fills a big bucket up to the brim and splashhhhhh.

Summer!

Tripping

2008-08-01T19:56:00.000-07:00

In South Lake Tahoe watching leaves do a jiggle move outside my woody-red room. The road's taken me from

Walnut to
Ventura to
Santa Barbara to
Oakland to
Santa Cruz to
San Francisco to
Grass Valley

700 miles so far, 400 left till home.

Before this it was

Fawnskin from
Walnut from
Palomar Mountain from
San Clemente from
Hot Creak from
Yosemite from
Oakdale

Which came after

New York City

The summer started with

Las Vegas to
Zion National Park to
Bryce Canyon NP to
Lake Powell to
Fawnskin to
Walnut to
San Onofre

There are still 50 days left to go before I start my credential/masters program.

Highlights as of yet:

~Paddling up the river on surfboards in Yosemite
~A sultry day of surfing and frying in jojoba oil at Bolsa Chica
~Passion Fruit Margaritas in Greenwich Village
~Picking bloody boysenberries off the side of the highway outside of former Cowboy Capitol of World
. . .

Shut the Smut Up

2008-06-15T23:03:00.001-07:00

My neighbor is having a party and so far lyrics are pumping through my window about

getting loose

this is why i'm hot

my hump

it's okay you're an A cup

I'm perusing the internet and found this simple article that gives some good tips on media literacy for kids

http://www.frankwbaker.com/kids_media_celebrity.htm

This god awful music is another story though. Miley Cyrus probably got all naked on the V. Fair without thinking of the reprecussions by listening to these shit lyrics all her life. Maybe I shouldn't assume but little Hannah Montana is iconic for what your daughter shouldn't idolize. Why is a 15 year old all smacked up on V. Fair in the first place?

God I'm getting all itched up about issues of social corruption as the volume of this disrespectful, hypersexed, emotionless smut bangs on my window screen.

Still awake. Reading my brother's class blog. http://mrshawnsperiod4ushistory.edublogs.org/welcome-washington-high-school-juniors/
Touche for excellence.

Synapses

2008-06-04T20:27:00.000-07:00

The wind is weaving its way around my dark legs, through my shirt. I plunge down, down, releasing the breaks as the wheels roar fast beneath me. I come to the dirt trail, facing off to a bunny, I meet the lumpy incline. My muscles feel stronger from hiking Angels’ Landing; this gauged by lack of sensation in my calves as I pump. I pump to release my skin from the helpless youth who smack their educators with rude words and apathy. I pump as a form of prayer for the women and men who yearn to climb out of ‘high-risk’ zones with a courageous grip on pencil and book. I pump to forge a connection with my beating mind—my enraged heart. I think of the political commentators who binge news watchers with high drama, the teenagers who cannot communicate with authority except by saying “Huh,” an entire generation only capable of expressing their words in uncommitted text, and the fading paint on Walnut Canyon. I wonder why America’s top priority is safety and what exactly the point of fear is, how I can envision a car swerving, then crash, splattering my brains across the pavement and what the Tribute subhead would say, how the little children would feel about the bicycling substitute teacher who was unfairly sent to heaven. That Edward Norton’s character in ‘Fight Club’ had something going when he found salvation from the corporate cow as his face was socked in, making his blood run clean. Sleeping pills, allergy pills, anti-depressant pills, happy pills, ecstasy, acid, marijuana, alcohol and the strength it takes to lead life pure as a blessing. Nature: its power of transcendence, feeding glory into the moment. As I pump, pump, forgetting that I pump, my soul screams to be free of media conformity, cries for others to hear themselves spewing nothing but caged slang and phrases, never uttering a word of compassion for thoughts or even each other. I want to say to the iconic rap stars that their voice is all some of these kids actually hear, Do you understand the implications of your phattist priorities? slobbered upon all of cyber, print and brain space? Am I making the right decisions, is there such a thing? Am I bound for convention, is it even escapable? If I were you, where would my synapses take me? On the road home, why do I name my mind my cursed enemy?

MAY

2008-05-12T19:13:00.000-07:00

Can I get a "Hallelujah" for the month of May?

May!

Is it so that May has looped up behind us already, with its golden poppies and the school year wrapping itself right up? Is it May with Boonville Beer festivals, childhood-friend weddings, and camping adventures to be made? Can it really be that it is May?

I'll tell you, since my last May, it's hard not to be jazzed up about this one. It was one of those months that just remind you how blessed you are to be living in your body; living amidst the people that just so happen to grace your world. I'd never identified a span of 31 days as so darn blissful before. An entire year has past and now, once again, I'm stoked it is May.

Maybe it's some kind of teacher thing. The end of the school year chapter is swiftly coming up and ladies and gentlemen, you couldn't imagine the imminent serenity. I can't even be talking, for I've never even had to write my own lesson plans. Yet when one recognizes the sheer bulk of hours I've spent trying to pump up and organize the children, the notion of summer for a substitute teacher still tastes savoringly sweet.

Something to report: I am no longer a private tutor to the two little boys I spent many an hour with since October. Mr. Dad called me last week to cut me loose, claiming he and Mrs. Mom were looking to revamp their sons' schedules, meaning I was no longer to be a part of their rigorous daily activities. I went into the last two days fueled with energy, admittedly relieved that my services were soon to come to a close. Yet on the last day when I let Alex, the 7 year old, know I would no longer be coming, the look in his eyes bolted straight into my heart. He tried to relay the news to his little brother, Brian, but it didn't seem to register. Now I don't mean to flatter myself here, but if you got to spend an hour a day as a little tyke having Stephanie read you stories and ask you silly journal entry questions, amongst other things, and then bam, parents decide to send her off without even a little warning, wouldn't it be just a tad bit jilting. Such emotional boo-hunk never seemed to enter that household. The expectation to achieve (as a preschooler and 1st grader) mugged up the whole atmosphere of this home that on some occasions even I was overwhelmed, and I am 22. I just hope by eliminating "the tutor" these boys' lives will be enriched with more play time. Play time that I fear, however, will be stuffed up with too much Spongebob, play guns, and chewing gum.

I learned a great deal entering this home every day for two hours to teach these little boys. I learned how people struggle to make the right choices for their children, especially when they are barely afforded the time to know them. From my perceptions of this family (and I'll be the first to admit that one can't truly know what goes on inside another's family) I've come to realize how difficult it seems for parents to know what is right for their children's emotional and cognitive health. In the interim, kids naturally attach to attractive scapegoats to fill up the hole that is drilled by their parent's oblivion to what's really important. I'll give it to you in three words (call me audacious, hell, I know I'm not a parent):

OUR LOVING CONNECTION

Okay, maybe I cheated a little bit on the advice giving, as the term "loving" is so abstract that these three words could be interpreted to mean anything, one might say. And god knows that kids have been loved but still turn out really messed up. I suppose by using this term "loving" I mean to imply all the heart and soul it takes to raise and teach a child correctly. It's not just some simple formula of this and that lessons, and this and that curriculum. As a parent, one has the greatest advantage in the game of life. This kid is made up of you! And damn, yes, there are so many treacherous forces that seem to have the power to interpolate into our children and make them little cyborg robots serving the Man but NO, as a parent the control is still in those soft, bearing hands, in those eyes that look just like your child's eyes, in the ears that have the opportunity each day, even if it's just for a few hours, to listen, really listen to the voice of your child, and to hear what that small voice is trying to say through it's blank-slate cluelessness. And if your child can't say anything because he is too afraid of what you might think, or say in return, to not judge him by the way he fidgets or her performance on a spelling test because your judgement will become your child's whole entire world. Take your hands, and with all the loving you can muster after a grueling day of working for the Man yourself, go home, and convince your child each day, because you are convinced yourself, that together, with love, you can become valuable human beings.

HOLES

2008-04-29T14:28:00.001-07:00

Holes in my Street

2008-04-17T14:32:00.000-07:00

Verizon is digging thousands of holes into Walnut. My knowledge of this hole digging all began with a rude jack hammer outside my window one warm morning, months ago. Since then, I dodge orange cones wherever I go. Sometimes I get lazy and drive over the holes that have been patched up by soft black gravel that aren't blocked off by cones. The little rocks spit up into my wheels sounding off a mini brigade beneath my ruby vehicle. They're bisecting the roads that take me to work, the store, and other's houses, off with these orange cones. Whenever I am forced to drive on the wrong side of the street, I imagine smashing into someone I know and how meting out the damage would fair. The other day I was taking a jog down Walnut Canyon and this man who I've seen several times over the span of 20 years, but never heard, started cussing to high heaven about the new box that had been implanted into his coveted green lawn. I've never heard so few words sum up such bloody rage.

Why are they digging these holes, you ask?

To make our phone/ Internet system better of course. As if it's not just fine as it is, of course they're going to spend millions of dollars to install the latest technology because otherwise, we'd be stuck with roads that don't have holes in them.

I'm not really that mad about the holes. Sure, they may have chipped off some of my car paint, or bolstered my propensity towards morbid thoughts, but I'm definitely not as mad as the neighbor dude who seemed on the verge of wanting to shoot the guy who cut out the big rectangle of his green property to install some corporate box. But I can't help thinking that these holes do stand for something.

I saw Salman Rushdie speak a few weeks ago and he said something that I'll never forget. He said the purpose of the novel is to open up one's universe. I loved this idea, but to understand it, I think it's essential to know what a little sliver of universe really looks like. How many people get so holed up in their own lives that the universe surrounding them can't even be seen? How many people stand face to face with someone they've known for decades, and still don't know what it takes to communicate with them? How many people relate more with a media-contrived image than with the depths of their own soul?

Rushdie said people in the 21st century don't know how to define themselves anymore, except by what irritates them. Count how many times a day words come out of your mouth; words that are the expressions of your irritations with something. If you weren't talking about your daily dramas and agitations, what would you have to say? What positive examples do we live by when the media constantly makes a commodity out of those that have issues. Having issues has risen above compassion on the "What Makes You Have Character" scale.

the audacity to...

2008-03-13T20:06:00.000-07:00

I have this drawer in my desk that doesn't close. It rolls a centimeter open and however many times I try to shut it, it rolls right open again. I tell my dad of the annoyance, as if he should be able to fix it. He's equally astounded by the opening drawer. Isn't the fundamental job of a drawer to close?

I hypothesis reasons as to why it refuses to tuck away in its appropriate position. An answer none other than cheap manufacturing of either the house or the desk seems the most logical. The house is a product of booming tract developments and lacks straight edges; the desk a product of Ikea. I presume the builders of neither prided themselves on genuine quality.

It seems a bit ridiculous to complain. I've had this desk for more than a decade, and I've lived in this house for two. The comfort in having a home is a luxury I know many don't enjoy. Yesterday I was soaking in my tub after a ridiculous day of teaching kindergarteners, thinking of how long I've claimed my bathroom as my own.

I've been thinking a lot lately about Obama's campaign theme the "Audacity to Hope." It's intriguing how such a powerful slogan translates amid the average day's exposures. It is without a doubt that in our country we are at the point of desperation for a savior: a person who courageously defies the corrupt trellises that have made our country a palimpsest of shame. Yet the thing I fear is the word itself--audacity.

[me·ton·y·my--a figure of speech that consists of the use of the name of one object or concept for that of another to which it is related, or of which it is a part, as “scepter” for “sovereignty,” or “the bottle” for “strong drink,” or “count heads (or noses)” for “count people.” ]

Is audacity metonymical for America, and is that part of the reason why so many favor this candidate of keen game and masterful ego? We have the right to be audacious because we are American. We are individual self-seekers who will stop at nothing to attain the best there is to offer because we are emboldened by the sheer disposition that is American audacity. It is without a doubt this audacity has taken us places others in our world may never even fathom. Four cars a plot and the finest granite kitchens! The right to job security and a hopped up Stock Market! Female prostitute's Myspace pictures around every corner and the guilty politician's wife standing beside him!

Audacity! Audacity! Audacity!

It is our plight as Americans to embody audacity with all-mighty pen and sword.

Yesterday, a 5-year old student of mine faced major trauma during computer lab when he got the sudden urge to take a poop. Being that as the teacher I am the captain of all things bathroom (mind you although I do have a controlling personality, I don't pride myself on this variety of control) little Vincent popped up off his computer desk looking into my eyes desperately to report his need for the toilet.

"Go! Go!" I proclaimed.

He ran off, seemingly fearful of the natural force working its way through his rectum. I was astounded as to why. In my childhood, whenever such an occasion came without great strife, I felt sublime relief.

Soon he was back from the toilet, recruiting one of his peers to help. I sent a reliable munchkin to talk him through his dirty work. She quickly returned in desperate need of a male munchkin. In my thinking, Vincent may have just needed some verbal encouragement, who better to send then a kinder role model. They both came running back from the potty in utter despair.

"VINCENT'S IN TROUBLE! HELP! HELP!"

At that point it seemed a desperate time, dire enough for the aid of the teacher. I ran through the halls seeking out the bathroom, when finally, I came upon little Vincent, sitting atop a toilet brim full of healthy shit.

"What is wrong?"

In annoying child garble, Vincent muttered "Tissue... Tissue."

"It is right there. You can do it Vincent. You can!"

"Nooo. My grandma always wipes for me. You have to do it." Oh hell no I didn't. Not to a five year old.

He mustered up the courage to tear off some tee-pee. Wipe! Wipe!

"But how do I know it's all gone? Can you see it? Can you?"

Holy, holy shit.

Later on in the afternoon I observed Vincent asking a fellow classmate if he knew how to do his own tucous work. It must've been an epiphanous moment for him when the boy said, "Ya. Don't you?"

Since then I've wondered why his grandma decided to wipe for him for the past five years. I hope after such a traumatic time on the pot, he's discovered the audacity to do it himself.

dot eleven

2008-02-12T22:20:00.000-08:00

You may wonder why I jump to "11." I begin with this number because while my fingers began to tap down on the keys, I thought of a pertinant moment with my 4 year old student today. One of the fundamental studies we cover are numbers and the beginning of addition. I've been trying to teach him "11" in a variety of ways. I got out color pencils to demonstrate a numeric situation and he insisted on building a house with them. Building his counter top was a crowning moment. After a few minutes I halted playtime to get back to the teaching at hand. He was ordering and identifying numbers 1-12 and today, like every other day we've tried to read 11, he got stuck.

"If you tell me the number, I'll let you play with my stamps."

"Uhhhh. . .uhh...ehhHH-LEVEN!!!"

When he comes upon something as important as the key to a reward, he likes to scream at the top of his little lungs. I'll admit it; I felt a bit like a sell-out, but my inkling that such an approach would deliver was just too strong to pass up. Give him some palpable incentives and the answers come spilling right out.

A similar situation occured earlier today when I decided to play a little trivia game with seventh graders on aspects of the five world religions. I happened to have some desperately old candy in my purse, but hell, it got their hot hands flying.

"What is the word for believing in many gods? What is the word for believing in one? Why is the cow sacred in the Hindu religion? What is the word for Jewish dietary laws? Answer them all and you will get a candy."

Boom, boom, boom.

There are always those kids that raise their hand every single damn time, never thinking that they will ultimately need an answer.

"I got it, pick me, pick me, PICK ME." Yes, you (I shoot a feeble point.)

"Uhh. . .uhh. . .I don't know."

Of course you don't know. You just got so excited about an incentive that it didn't even occur to you that you would have to do some thinking.

It wouldn't be fair to write an entirely cynical dot without sharing some of the sweeter bits of my day: an extremely caring and friendly student, a delicious lunch salad from my mom's kitchen, valentine making with Brie, and a heart swell from reading an old children's story with colorings done by my brother and me from when we were little kiddies.

Ma vie. . .

dot something

2008-01-24T13:58:00.000-08:00

The weather has been so fickle today. Fat drops, light ones, sun beams, gray. I worked for three hours in a fifth grade classroom at my old elementary school this morning. It's a strange, subtle feeling I get being at Westhoff. Normally when I walk into a school the secretary asks me if I'm a student or a sub. They spit a little laugh into my face, and say, "Oh, good, the room's right over there." At Westhoff the office lady is still the same. She enquires about my family, and has a lovely smile.

Today, out of 35 students, one was Egyptian, two were Caucasian, and the rest were of Asian descent. I'm not sure what the exact racial background was when I went there. Indeed, the "make-up" has changed; the majority is vast. My college friend Stella told me she read in the LA Times that Chinese diplomats have moved to Walnut to learn about our cities government for the benefit of their own. I haven't researched this further, but I do wonder what makes Walnut distinctly attractive in this respect.

When I was in high school a news station came to report the utopian-like diversity of our community. I recall writing my essay to get into college with this vision of my background in mind. Growing up in Walnut instilled in me and my peers a great sense of multiculturalism. I feel reluctant to put it out there, but I’m curious if this sense is still enabled in environments such as the one at my old elementary school.

A few months ago I was heading out to a spot called the Library Bar with a dear friend of mine and some others. One girl acted shocked that I could’ve grown up in Walnut. As they spoke in their native language, I recall one of them saying, “She must be used to hearing it, living in Walnut.”

I didn’t feel awkward as an outsider. In fact, I felt very much on the inside, even if they did speak frankly about the difference in our descents. I’m sure the minorities in the classroom today feel the same. They may not know an Asian language or the family dynamics of their peers. But I’m certain they still view Walnut as their community.

I found it interesting last week. A teacher at another elementary school in the area had a pamphlet for the new “Buddhist church” to open on a street lined with other religious institutions of Christian origin. Some community members had voiced their concern about the architecture of the building—would it be as prominently Asian looking as the Buddhist temple in Hacienda Heights? Thankfully to some, the new facility would look more like a community center than a religious building. And what do you know, it’s also being called a church.

A friend of my mom recently wrote a book about Barack Obama’s position in the upcoming presidential election. The author, Shelby Steele, marks Obama a “bound man,” incapable of rising above the “politics of guilt and innocence generated by our painful racial history.”

In conversation with my grandpa this weekend, a former superintendent of schools through the eras of segregation and integration, he exposed his view that there are simply too many Americans who cannot see beyond the color of Obama’s skin, thereby making him unelectable. If America were to elect Obama, we may be viewed by the world as a nation who’s defied the force of racism.

I’d like to continue in my thoughts. Unfortunately I must squirm in the suburban traffic to get to my next location…

dot 6

2008-01-17T19:49:00.001-08:00

I'm doubting the ability to type with fingers as frigid as mine. Why a home is so cold is beyond me. Today was spent with the children; sweet, concerned, conniving children. I was roving, meaning that wherever I was needed to relieve a teacher, I would be. 1st graders, pasting standarized testing scores into student files, 4th graders, 2nd graders. A day that sucks a certain juice out of me.

After an hour with questioning, "low group" 9 year olds, all willing and desperate to know the division of decimals without even understanding 20-18, or 5x3, I then went to count beans with 7 year olds also struggling with the concepts of adddition. It struck me as draining. The 7 year olds' teacher had an incentive method though. Get an answer, collect a pretzel! This seemed appealing at first, directing the children with pretzels. It quickly got old. Especially when I wanted to bark at the girl who asked in her sweet, syrupy voice But if we do this, can we get a pretzel?

"ARE YOU SUPPOSED TO ASK THOSE SORTS OF QUESTIONS...YOU?"

They expect me to know their names. Sometimes for the naive ones, nametags provide them with such disbelief. I can read your mind, sweet one. Then a saavier kid will chime in and let the truth hang out.

I was enquiring to my boyfriend the other day if he remembered when he lost his belief in Santa Claus. He recalled the moment sharply, when Heather DeFeather had blabbed the truth out in class. Crushed. My student Alex eagerly asked me the other day what I got from Santa Claus this year. Money and some earrings. That's it? A creme brulee machine. HAHAH, money! he laughed. I had a feeling he was squirming away his loss of faith.

Spending an hour with a 7 year old and then another with a 4 year old every day can be something else. I'd like to report that Brian, the little one, presented phonemic awareness today. I was peachy. A is for Apple and Q is for Queen. I won't deny that it was the Hooked on Phonics program that made it all transpire. I decided today was the day we focus on letter sounds instead of names, and with the flashy computer screen and power mouse controller, he was on his way. It was enlivening to be a part of. Then he demanded I read two books, instead of barely getting through one. Hurricanes and tornadoes, topics that he fancies.

Now I'm watching Jack Nicholson in his sexy years as a cuckold's detective in Chinatown. The bath is seducing me with all its heat energy potential. I'm curious what happened to the popularity of a broach.

dot five

2008-01-12T14:46:00.000-08:00

on this winter day in january i'm lying out in the sun. green mountains, a long white picket fence in the distance, glaring blue pool water in my short view. dynamic clouds.

i took an exam this morning to become a teacher of adolescents. quite a long, fat exam. rich with important knowledge, i now conclude.

to know the colonization of California, the science of a lunar eclipse, the necessary cognitative development of a child. to be familiar with post- World War II economy, the personification in Neruda's prose, the discussion of force and gravity.

let's hope i passed.

in the next one-half year of my life, i am free to do whatever i want. in this moment, i believe i know what that means. things sometimes can become muddled. however right now is where i ought to be.

dy·nam·ic /daɪˈnæmɪk/ Pronunciation Key - Show Spelled Pronunciation[dahy-nam-ik] Pronunciation Key - Show IPA Pronunciation
–adjective Also, dy·nam·i·cal.

1. pertaining to or characterized by energy or effective action; vigorously active or forceful; energetic: the dynamic president of the firm.
2. Physics.
a. of or pertaining to force or power.
b. of or pertaining to force related to motion.
3. pertaining to the science of dynamics.
4. of or pertaining to the range of volume of musical sound.
5. Computers. (of data storage, processing, or programming) affected by the passage of time or the presence or absence of power: Dynamic memory must be constantly refreshed to avoid losing data.
6. Grammar. nonstative. –noun
7. a basic or dynamic force, esp. one that motivates, affects development or stability, etc.

what a multi-faceted word.

dot four

2007-11-27T22:30:00.000-08:00

Tonight I feel compelled to make a dot on the non-cohesive thoughts flowing through my head. I am reading a novel called "What is the What" about a boy named Valentino Achek Deng who walks through civil war-torn Sudan, lives in refugee camps in Kenya, and eventually makes it to America to be coldly robbed in his apartment in Atlanta.

The content of my pre-bedtime novel has a tendency to seep into my dreams. The other night I was tirelessly defending myself against a cruel man with a shot gun. Throughout the dream scene I held a purple shot gun in my pocket but refused to take it out in fear that if the attacker were to see my purple shot gun, he would feel all the more obliged to shoot me.

Many people tell me my dreams are intense. While studying to be certified as a sexual assault crisis counselor, I lived through a variety of rape scenes first person, waking in a state of relief. Had I actually experienced the trauma while conscious, the affect on my persona would be vastly different. The assaults were vicarious; a product of curiosity and study.

For some reason I'm reminded of the BFG (Big Friendly Giant.) I can't remember much from the Ronald Dahl book, but I do recall the BFG emerging during an hour of the night when every other being in the scope of the story is fast asleep, tapped out from any conscious state. Reading this novel as a child, I recall wondering if such an hour or segment of time truly did exist. Can all people, at once, truly be asleep? At this moment of black peace, is there solace in the nothingness of the unconscious?

It's hard to tell if knowing you are one thing or another really aids in one's discovery of a moment, a purpose, a problem. You may know that you are influenced by your blood, running strong with alcoholism, a harsh temper, a frugal hand, but can this awareness ultimately contribute to the achievement of some sort of nirvana?

I've jumped off any sort of train of thought.

A dot: do you know who you are? Are you found in your dreams, or in your waking hours?

dot three

2007-11-15T19:05:00.000-08:00

A brown haired girl with slightly slit eyes and plaqued teeth could not bear life in the 4th grade today. As thirty children pounded into the classroom, Kayla's wails could be seen and heard from playgrounds away.

"They are...all...making fun-nn-n of meeeee!" she let her voice trickle out as her body wretched in turmoil. "They said Ms. Sha said to go to the end of the line, but you did not say to go to the end of the line, but they all said Ms. Sha said, and you didn't. You didn't. You...hoo...didn't."

Her personal horror lingered on for many minutes.

"Hates you, but why?" In the four hours I spent with this kid, every encounter she had would result in a confession that she or he was an affront to her existence. In need of reinforcement, she would ceaselessly tattle. Every student surrounding her, a monster out to eat her alive. On the rare chance she could connect with one, they'd be unwillling to connect back, because she had treated them like a monster moments before.

At 8 years old, could it just be Kayla's peers that pressed her to the point of isolation? Was this just a tale of the fourth grade nothing, or would she forever perceive the people around her as cruel enemies?

I ran out of gas on Saturday on my way up to Santa Barbara. Barely rolling off the freeway, I double parked in a left turn lane of a major boulevard, locked my car, and ran across the oncoming traffic to the oasis Shell station. Before I even had to strategize a solution, a middle-aged man wearing dirty pants and scruff yelled out his car window, "You need a hand?" I would have loved one at that point. He reparked his old cruiser, removed a small gas can from his trunk, and walked up to me. "Come on now, you hear, we don't have much time before the tow-truck'll get you." I followed along, willing to do whatever he said in order to get my idle car off the street.

"You know, I'm not gunna do this for nothing," he muttered. I began to question his ulterior motives, but vowed to keep it cool.

"I can give you some money if you like." He didn't respond. In a hurry, he led me across four lanes. I cautiously unlocked my car and opened the gas tank.

"You know, I'm always getting screwed over. The whole damn world just screws me over."

"Well maybe you are in for some good karma," I replied, not knowing what else to say.

This wasn't what he wanted to hear.

"Yeah right. You know something about me, I was in the military. I was in the damn American military, and they put a chip in me. Now they are watching my every move, all the time. Watching me, and screwing everything up." I stayed mute, listening to his troubled words.

"Hey, you think I can borrow $5 dollars." He had rescused me from my pickle. Of course.

"Turn it on and off and on and off." I toggled the ignition. "No!" he screamed, "On and off. Don't start the engine!"

The car roared up. I rolled off, leaving him with genuine words of gratitude. Had he believed them, I'll never know.

Dot two.

2007-11-14T22:05:00.000-08:00

I am sucking on a Dum-Dum, thinking about how enthusiastic I was to describe the necessity for proper-nouns at work. The little boy with his desk situated in front of me had a black eye appearing to be pierced by a sword. Sword of what sorts? Teaching the genre of mystery, I'd have put it forth as evidence, the bloody blot on his eye. "Too simple," he replied at the judgement of the detective in the four paged story we were slowly reading. The genre of mystery--bores you? You are uncomfortable with the way I am not familiar, guilty with impatience and a short attention span. If having received the chance to ask the detective, Encyclpedia Brown, if he had a girlfriend, it would be your question number one. But you don't number the question, maybe you find it arbitrary. Nine years of experience living, and what really irks you? Did receiving the bloody blot on your eye hurt? It pisses me off how I can't press return and get a space. But at least I get to chose whenever I get to suck on a Dum-Dum. However there are many hours in my life when I feel so choiceless. Radio commercials, red lights, radical children. Or maybe I love radical children. It's strange how something in life is received as positive or negative. A career, notably. Do you give me jived up eyebrows when I say I will become a fire dancer. For life. When you live and work in education, it becomes evident that the politics of the committee, litigators, and board fuels a faucet of need and greed. This is the knowledge (perspective) received by evidenced acts and cases. Is it easy to get what you want when you want it, with the litigators fighting for you to get what you want because they think it's what you need (pocketbooks or morals.) The holidays are coming, they tell us that the days for our buying are numbered. Spend money on Christmas trees, let the suspense of the tidings hinge you to the ground. Alibi for the children innocents. Directly, these expectations are important to children. Everyday they harbor them. "Are we going to play a... game? Can we have some free time...now? Where is the...candy?" Candy for what? Not paying attention. Not having an attention span. Being concerned with ulterior motives. Most natural for this breed. A generation of fantastics. Nothing but punchy interchanges and actions. Overgeneralization, occurring. Suits of varying identifiers nonetheless, that I am not credentialed to identify. Devotion of a substitute teacher,

Dot One

2007-11-13T19:12:00.000-08:00

There is a large elephant sitting in this room, watching me drink apricot wheat drink.

It is sexless, doesn't say much.

We've watched the flat screen. So far it's been epiphinal moments, with lots of blood and blowing leaves.

I see all it's skin, reminding me of wet cement.

Big elephant, why does your parched ear feel like cotton upon my brow?

When you kiss me like so, I hear the Big Bands swing.

Red puffs of lips, greased parted man hair.

Love, really.

It makes me want to die when the grass grows right under your feet, in the house.

Death by amazement.

I shout, "How did you do that?"

All you give back is the tired look of a tutor.

It's okay, I've said, time and time again.

You, large elephant, don't need to explain a thing.