School Update

Well, we were dead on with the economy worries last week: it tanked in big ways this week, and could tank more over the next few weeks.

But this entry will focus on school. I don't want to jinx it, but knock on wood, everything is going remarkably smoothly. I know what I'm doing with my software for the most part, the basics anyway, and my new hardware is cooperating, except for the occasional glitch and one hard drive that tanked the first day and is lost in the tech underworld.

I have 20 students enrolled with 14 computers next term, but my fearless department-head guy named Gurnie is gonna try and help me with that. Oops, I inadvertently started bitching.

Kids are well behaved and attentive and charming. Seriously, I don't have one kid this term that I dread seeing every day: yes, we teachers are human and do have favorites and klunkers. Kiwi is plugging away on last year's yearbook, but the card company still won't return my phone calls, emails or hard copy mailings. So this book might not come out until Christmas.....oh well, no sweat off my uterus. The kids are used to it by now, and nobody complains very loudly to me.

My former students are still keeping in touch too. Jedi is kicking ass in college, but worried about his beautiful girlfriend who has comprehension problems and a wee bit of depression. Ranae is wanting to come back home at semester, but maybe now that she's a college photographer for the newspaper she will be hooked into the culture a bit more and find herself.

I talked with Rachmo via Skype last weekend and she is a beautiful tatooed young woman who is my soul mate. I can live vicariously through her, and pretend I am still wild and free. Pyroman and I talk often too via gmail chat, and he's busy hacking computer systems and using his talents for evil, as usual. I haven't heard hide nor hair of Steakboy for months, but heard he's having continuing health problems and women problems...I love that boy extra much but he's too busy for me these days it seems. I bombarded him with emails yesterday though, so we'll see if he responds.

I also talk to other students: Tood, the cool Mexican dood who hasn't quite found his niche in life yet; Mr. TV Man, the high school graduate turned producer for a local TV station, who is turning conservative on me again; Vancent, who bought a Harley and is coming over to hang with us a bit this week; and KFin, my little waif of a friend who I need to call soon, as she demands it occasionally.

Smooth shift so far, as my hubby's friend says. That's all I really want, is smooth shifts in life. Is that too much to ask?

What goes around...

On this fine Sunday morning, Elvis is crooning gospel tunes in the background and my husband is waxing philosophic about politics. All is normal.

But what he's saying is a bit unnerving. If one believes that history repeats itself, then we are headed toward another great depression or major economic collapse. The government just bailed out two major mortgage companies, and people are losing their homes at record rates. The so-called war in Iraq has made our national debt the worst in history. China owns us. Period.

In 1933, President Roosevelt said, "The only thing we have to fear is fear itself." Now, the Republicans tell us daily that we have to be afraid. We can't be weak on "terror." What the fuck? Oh well, we just need to kill all brown people, is what the masses are really saying.

Speaking of that, I know people who don't want Barack Obama to win the election because he'll just get assassinated. Other people who are mildy racist are becoming full blown racist now that a HALF black man is up for President. The KKK is becoming more active again. I wanna puke.

Is this 1950? Are we gonna keep all brown people in their place, or are we going to embrace our fellow humans?

I wish things didn't go around so predictably. I'm not that smart and I can see it.

This has been your Sunday morning public service announcement.

The Middle

I feel like I'm in the middle of lots of stuff right now. I'm in the middle of my life, to start. I will turn 45 in a month, and I am starting to feel my age. I am comfortable with it all, not trying to avoid aging -- but I would like life to slow down a bit. Seems each day blends into the next, and then a year goes by.

I'm also in the middle of last year's yearbook. I can't get a return letter from the playing card company -- and we need that release so they can print our cover. We have 51 pages left to final, and it's slow going. Ranae isn't going to be in town until homecoming, and we better have this book done by then. Kiwi is plugging away on it, and we plan to work late next week a day to try to get 'er done.

Finally, I'm in the middle of a dilemma: should I retire from this job or start trying to be an educational consultant? What do I wanna do with the next 20 years of my career? What is my "spiel?" Should I get back into sexuality education? Should I stick with journalism? And should I then go for my doctorate degree?

Hmmmmm. I also woke up in the middle of the night thinking about these things...and I've been upping my meds as per the advice of my shrink.

Oh well, I guess it's better to live life in the middle than always judging how it ends. How will my life end? Will I have achieved all my goals? Will I have made an impact on others?

Hope I can blog in heaven or hell, wherever I end up.

Member of the Week

See? This job has indirectly turned me into the biggest geek on the planet.

I've been playing this game so much on facebook that I got voted member of the week by my peers.

How fucking cool is THAT?

I sit here, safely tucked into my rocking chair in my office, clicking away, healing people who get messed up in battle zones, and chatting with the cool people in the chatroom -- meeting wonderful young professionals and students from literally around the world.

I have friends in California, Florida, Malaysia, Brazil, UK, and even close friends from Indiana, Wisconsin and South Dakota.

Ahhhh, it's fun to be a member of something, and it's fun to go into a chatroom "where everybody knows your name."

/me is a big geek.

Laboring on Labor Day

Well, the Allister test failed. His poetry has much more interesting spacing, and his word documents don't transfer to blogspot well. But Allister is not a failure, in fact, he will be famous some day. I love how full of passion and angst his poetry is. More on him later.

For today, I get to go into school on my day off. Ranae and Kiwi and I are gonna crank out some pages this morning, cuz we gots to get this fucking book done.

We have pages to send off, we have pages to proof, and we have pages to create. I have brand new PC computers to start the new yearbook with, but we have to finish the old on the two old macs.

So I'm psycho. Finish the 08 yearbook and start the 09 yearbook simultaneously, run two businesses who need money badly, and teach a full load of classes.

But I'm not dreaming about it. I am not obsessing about it. I have found a balance, I think. I'll only know when I look back at this period in retrospect.

Meanwhile, I shall labor for a few hours, then come home and sit on my ass and fight heroes on facebook. That has been my escape for the past few months. That's how I found Allister.

Allister...

...is my friend who writes poetry. This is a test. This is only a test.

Lustful Synapses

I have empted the bin

that barely had

enough room

I could squeeze in

beside your screams

hardly knew

that you could speak

outside of saw blades

against my nerves

it’s the crackle

snap

or the crunch,

and sometimes

sluck, sluck, sluck.

oh shit

did we touch?

I can’t remember

Did you impress my sensation rod?

I cherish the ones that can

there is a podium where they all

wait to be visited

sitting cross-legged

holding themselves

small so more can

be slushed onto the center

reinvoked a lustful steam

of memory flashy

and back to intensity

of sensation

the outward upsurge

of stiffing

that is a recall to moment

both tingling and exuberant

the crackle of our synapses

snap of the bed springs

the crunch of foil

and the sluck, sluck, sluck

of one entering another

The Approaching End

All regimes come to an end, and the passing of the torch from one yearbook staff to the next is like the end of an empire. In this case, Ranae, the current editor-in-chief, has been on staff for 3 years...she is like my niece (not a daughter, she has a perfectly capable mother) and best friend too. We confide in each other, and we work together very well. She has been coming in for a couple hours every day she can, but she juggles several jobs and friends and so we haven't been putting in the marathon hours we have needed to do in order to get this book done.

That's probably why I haven't blogged very much. I'm trying very hard not to care that the book is in bad shape....still haven't resolved the cover copyright problem, have a bunch of pages here to proof and send back, and there are still completely BLANK pages that were blown off by previous staff members...and Ranae's going off to college on Wednesday.

That means Kiwi, the new editor-in-chief, will have to take over and finish the book. AND SHE COULDN'T FIT YEARBOOK INTO HER SCHEDULE THIS YEAR. The girl is involved in everything, valedictorian with hard classes, and she just couldn't fit it in. But she still wants to do the job, so we squeezed in an independent study class in the mornings, where she will be able to slowly make progress on the book.

The new yearbook staff will begin proofing last year's yearbook on the second day of class...and I hope to get it done before my birthday, which is 10-4. That's how late we were my first year here. The school is getting used to not getting their books until Thanksgiving, so I'm trying very hard not to get my tummy in knots and avoid sleepless nights.

I am doing a very good job.

I think.