Hope-tober

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.