is because No Child Left Behind sucks.
A strong opinion, I realize, but I really believe it to be true. I don't think that NCLB is a good use of resources when stronger education states already had state testing programs in place. It creates competition between elementary schools over test scores.
It also propogates shady activities that I won't get into.
It really pisses me off that Bush passes it off as 'what saved education.' That statement is a load of crap.
I became a teacher to educate children to the best of my ability, not to compete over test scores.
As you can tell, it wasn't a fun day today.
Wednesday, January 24, 2007
Monday, January 22, 2007
As the first birthday approaches...
I thought it would be a good idea to throw Mark a first birthday party. I should really call it the snowball party. What was originally going to be a few people has snowballed into 35 to 45 people.
What's my secret? That while I am kinda whining about the preparations, I'm really excited. I'm excited to see everyone, I'm excited to see how happy Mark is, I'm excited to see how he reacts to birthday cake.
I really can't wait. The party is T minus 6 days and counting.
P.S. I have to shout out to B. You've helped me so much in putting this together with Phil gone, and I want to let you know that I'm grateful to have you as a friend.
What's my secret? That while I am kinda whining about the preparations, I'm really excited. I'm excited to see everyone, I'm excited to see how happy Mark is, I'm excited to see how he reacts to birthday cake.
I really can't wait. The party is T minus 6 days and counting.
P.S. I have to shout out to B. You've helped me so much in putting this together with Phil gone, and I want to let you know that I'm grateful to have you as a friend.
Sunday, January 14, 2007
You Can't Ever Go Back Home...
I realize that time marches on and communities change-- for God's sake, I have a B.A. in History. My bachelor's thesis is all about how Deadwood, S.D. changed from settlement through the first 30-ish years.
But I should start by saying that I have hometowns-- Lead and Deadwood, S.D. are so intertwined that I consider them both my hometowns. I was born in Deadwood, I grew up in Lead. We banked in Lead, we'd pay the electric bill in Deadwood. Grocery shopping was in Lead, the J.C. Penney was in Deadwood. And so on.
My dad worked at the gold mine in Lead. The 'high point' of the mine was in the '70s and '80s (go back to your Econ courses-- when the economy is good, commodities such as gold do badly-- but when the economy is bad, commodities do well). By the '90s, things weren't going so well. Deadwood was really struggling. The downtown was deteriorating and there were buildings that were vacant.
Then 'You Bet!' came in and proposed bringing legalized gambling to Deadwood. It passed and Deadwood became a boomtown again. Some tourists came back and were pissed that tacky, crumbling Deadwood was gone. Other folks came for the whole Dances with Wolves/Kevin Costner connection. But there were lots of tourists.
When I was in college, Deadwood was thriving. The buildings were being refurbished and it was fun again. I worked at the Bullock Hotel in the summers. When my husband and I were engaged, we stayed at the Branch House, and we rented out the entire Bullock Hotel for our wedding guests.
So when my mom offered to take care of Mark overnight so DH and I could get away, we decided to go to Deadwood and stay at the Branch House. We drove up in the middle of the week and planned to go skiing. Due to global warming, IMO, there was no skiing. So we decided to drive up through Spearfish Canyon and hang out in Deadwood.
Ick.
I walked past about three 70-year-olds (that I swear I recognized from my time working in Deadwood during college) sticking quarters into slot machines as I went to check in. (i.e., it was REALLLLY slow.) We settled into our room and went out to dinner.
Deadwood is a carnivore's or a buffet-lover's delight-- but we didn't want anything heavy and decided to go to an old favorite, Chinatown. We asked for a table (and I failed to notice that she didn't ask us about smoking or nonsmoking) and we were seated next to a table of roughly seven people that were ALL smoking. Empty restaurant, we're seated next to the only other table there, and they are chain smoking. So we stood up, walked to the hostess, explained the situation, and requested another table. She looked absolutely shocked at our chutzpah (I forget how 'assertive' I've become in relation to how I was in high school) but reseated us. The food was okay, but it was pretty dead.
After dinner, we walked up and down Main Street. I was showing DH where different things from the Deadwood series were located in real life (i.e. the original Saloon #10 location, the 'Badlands' district, the Gem theatre). We then realized that as we walked up and down the three blocks, it was us and the old people. And one family of five. I bet we passed eight people on Main Street. Total. The casinos held chain smoking 60 and 70-year-olds.
Depressed and disappointed, we went for a drive up to Lead. It was even more buttoned-up. I thought we might get a beer at the Stamp Mill or something, but it was closed as was everything else on Main Street. (I exaggerate-- I thing Subway and the gas station formerly a Common Cents were open.) So we went to the 'Mall.'
The Lead 'Mall' consists of a grocery store, an Alco, and a bowling alley. After taking a even more depressing turn through Alco (I stood in the beauty aisle and realized that it was where I spent my adolescence dreaming being pretty and how things would be better in the future-- everything is uphill after being in the Alco beauty aisle), we went to the bowling alley.
When we walked in, I recognized roughly half of the people there. Couldn't name all of them, but I recognized them. Phil and I bowled three frames and I came to some major life realizations.
1) My life turned out okay. I'd recently been thinking that maybe it wouldn't have been so bad to not go to college so far away and settled in my hometown, married a nice local boy (there was one who would have been willing, I'm sure, from the look on his face when I introduced to my now-DH as my fiance), and had a family there. I wouldn't have been happy. I would have been scrounging by, not being able to afford necessities, and trying to scrape ahead since I didn't have the correct last name.
2) Lead and Deadwood have so much untapped potential. But they aren't cute like the towns in Colorado and they are gearing themselves toward people who like to drink and smoke and gamble. There is so much more to these towns then that.
So we finished our bowling, I paid and chatted with the cashier about Lead, and back to the Branch House we went. The highlight of the evening was watching The Family Stone on HBO. And The Family Stone is a train wreck of a movie, if that puts things into perspective.
The next morning, we ended up driving down Hwy. 385 in the Black Hills from Pluma (if you haven't driven through the Hills, you must put it on your before-you-die list, because it is awesome) down past Pactola Resevoir. Pactola is the water supply for Rapid City and it is so incredibly low that Rapid should be incredibly worried. Scary.
We then went down to Hill City. We came upon the PrairieBerry Winery and spent an enjoyable hour or so tasting and shopping. (We had fun-- the wine isn't that great, but what the heck, the tasting was free.) As we drove through Hill City, which is thriving-- fun shops downtown, lots of people out shopping-- I thought to myself that Deadwood/Lead is way off track. Hill City is much more fun than Lead/Deadwood, skanky wine and all.
So, my walk-away was that my hometown(s) is/are in trouble. I don't think that they are attracting the kind of tourists that will return again and again (70-year-olds eventually pass away) and they aren't family-friendly. Due to climate change, they don't have the snow that they used to have. And Lead is banking on a Neutrino lab that may or may not come, depending on Federal funding (and the U.S. has a big war to pay for).
I hope that the towns can ressurect themselves. But something's gotta change.
But I should start by saying that I have hometowns-- Lead and Deadwood, S.D. are so intertwined that I consider them both my hometowns. I was born in Deadwood, I grew up in Lead. We banked in Lead, we'd pay the electric bill in Deadwood. Grocery shopping was in Lead, the J.C. Penney was in Deadwood. And so on.
My dad worked at the gold mine in Lead. The 'high point' of the mine was in the '70s and '80s (go back to your Econ courses-- when the economy is good, commodities such as gold do badly-- but when the economy is bad, commodities do well). By the '90s, things weren't going so well. Deadwood was really struggling. The downtown was deteriorating and there were buildings that were vacant.
Then 'You Bet!' came in and proposed bringing legalized gambling to Deadwood. It passed and Deadwood became a boomtown again. Some tourists came back and were pissed that tacky, crumbling Deadwood was gone. Other folks came for the whole Dances with Wolves/Kevin Costner connection. But there were lots of tourists.
When I was in college, Deadwood was thriving. The buildings were being refurbished and it was fun again. I worked at the Bullock Hotel in the summers. When my husband and I were engaged, we stayed at the Branch House, and we rented out the entire Bullock Hotel for our wedding guests.
So when my mom offered to take care of Mark overnight so DH and I could get away, we decided to go to Deadwood and stay at the Branch House. We drove up in the middle of the week and planned to go skiing. Due to global warming, IMO, there was no skiing. So we decided to drive up through Spearfish Canyon and hang out in Deadwood.
Ick.
I walked past about three 70-year-olds (that I swear I recognized from my time working in Deadwood during college) sticking quarters into slot machines as I went to check in. (i.e., it was REALLLLY slow.) We settled into our room and went out to dinner.
Deadwood is a carnivore's or a buffet-lover's delight-- but we didn't want anything heavy and decided to go to an old favorite, Chinatown. We asked for a table (and I failed to notice that she didn't ask us about smoking or nonsmoking) and we were seated next to a table of roughly seven people that were ALL smoking. Empty restaurant, we're seated next to the only other table there, and they are chain smoking. So we stood up, walked to the hostess, explained the situation, and requested another table. She looked absolutely shocked at our chutzpah (I forget how 'assertive' I've become in relation to how I was in high school) but reseated us. The food was okay, but it was pretty dead.
After dinner, we walked up and down Main Street. I was showing DH where different things from the Deadwood series were located in real life (i.e. the original Saloon #10 location, the 'Badlands' district, the Gem theatre). We then realized that as we walked up and down the three blocks, it was us and the old people. And one family of five. I bet we passed eight people on Main Street. Total. The casinos held chain smoking 60 and 70-year-olds.
Depressed and disappointed, we went for a drive up to Lead. It was even more buttoned-up. I thought we might get a beer at the Stamp Mill or something, but it was closed as was everything else on Main Street. (I exaggerate-- I thing Subway and the gas station formerly a Common Cents were open.) So we went to the 'Mall.'
The Lead 'Mall' consists of a grocery store, an Alco, and a bowling alley. After taking a even more depressing turn through Alco (I stood in the beauty aisle and realized that it was where I spent my adolescence dreaming being pretty and how things would be better in the future-- everything is uphill after being in the Alco beauty aisle), we went to the bowling alley.
When we walked in, I recognized roughly half of the people there. Couldn't name all of them, but I recognized them. Phil and I bowled three frames and I came to some major life realizations.
1) My life turned out okay. I'd recently been thinking that maybe it wouldn't have been so bad to not go to college so far away and settled in my hometown, married a nice local boy (there was one who would have been willing, I'm sure, from the look on his face when I introduced to my now-DH as my fiance), and had a family there. I wouldn't have been happy. I would have been scrounging by, not being able to afford necessities, and trying to scrape ahead since I didn't have the correct last name.
2) Lead and Deadwood have so much untapped potential. But they aren't cute like the towns in Colorado and they are gearing themselves toward people who like to drink and smoke and gamble. There is so much more to these towns then that.
So we finished our bowling, I paid and chatted with the cashier about Lead, and back to the Branch House we went. The highlight of the evening was watching The Family Stone on HBO. And The Family Stone is a train wreck of a movie, if that puts things into perspective.
The next morning, we ended up driving down Hwy. 385 in the Black Hills from Pluma (if you haven't driven through the Hills, you must put it on your before-you-die list, because it is awesome) down past Pactola Resevoir. Pactola is the water supply for Rapid City and it is so incredibly low that Rapid should be incredibly worried. Scary.
We then went down to Hill City. We came upon the PrairieBerry Winery and spent an enjoyable hour or so tasting and shopping. (We had fun-- the wine isn't that great, but what the heck, the tasting was free.) As we drove through Hill City, which is thriving-- fun shops downtown, lots of people out shopping-- I thought to myself that Deadwood/Lead is way off track. Hill City is much more fun than Lead/Deadwood, skanky wine and all.
So, my walk-away was that my hometown(s) is/are in trouble. I don't think that they are attracting the kind of tourists that will return again and again (70-year-olds eventually pass away) and they aren't family-friendly. Due to climate change, they don't have the snow that they used to have. And Lead is banking on a Neutrino lab that may or may not come, depending on Federal funding (and the U.S. has a big war to pay for).
I hope that the towns can ressurect themselves. But something's gotta change.
Saturday, January 13, 2007
Unfinished Things
I don't accomplish all that I set out to do. Just ask my DH. I have drawers full of unfinished assorted crafty-ness upstairs. (I am not allowing myself to buy new stuff until I finish some of the freakin' stuff taking up space. Unless I need something to finish it. Or if I need more to complete a set. But pretty much, I've cut myself off.)
It makes me crazy sometimes. I have stacks of stuff, cluttering counters. My poor DH will go through stuff (invariably when I'm busy cooking, or feeding Mark, or blogging) and ask what I want done with this or that bit of clutter. I freak out, telling him not to touch that, I need to go through that, I'll take care of it when I'm done cooking/feeding Mark/blogging. Do I? Not usually.
Which makes it weird that I've recently accomplished a lot. For example, our kitchen/dining room has been 75% painted for months. Going around the cabinets is tough, but not so tough that I should have waited this long. So this morning when Mark went down for a nap, I pulled out the paint and went at it. It's done now.
I feel like I'm actually accomplishing stuff. I finished one craft project (well the major portion of it, it isn't completely finished) and I'm close to finishing another.
I still have my piles of stuff. But it feels good to complete some things.
It makes me crazy sometimes. I have stacks of stuff, cluttering counters. My poor DH will go through stuff (invariably when I'm busy cooking, or feeding Mark, or blogging) and ask what I want done with this or that bit of clutter. I freak out, telling him not to touch that, I need to go through that, I'll take care of it when I'm done cooking/feeding Mark/blogging. Do I? Not usually.
Which makes it weird that I've recently accomplished a lot. For example, our kitchen/dining room has been 75% painted for months. Going around the cabinets is tough, but not so tough that I should have waited this long. So this morning when Mark went down for a nap, I pulled out the paint and went at it. It's done now.
I feel like I'm actually accomplishing stuff. I finished one craft project (well the major portion of it, it isn't completely finished) and I'm close to finishing another.
I still have my piles of stuff. But it feels good to complete some things.
Thursday, January 11, 2007
Laughter and a Sweet Tea Shower
I miss my friends. As in really miss my friends. I met them through my workplace and they are awesome people to work with, but nothing beats when we just hang out together.
We always seem to kick up the excitement a notch when we're together. If you see three women sitting together, howling with laughter (the beer-squirts-out-your-nose kind of laughter) then that is probably us.
We've had some interesting experiences-- almost melting into a puddle in a pretzel factory in July, having to restrain one of us from sticking their head in a chocolate fountain (not me! It was L.!), dining at La Fleur (to be pronounced with an extremely exaggerated French accent), trying to convince one of us that a bag of oregano was really Mary Jane, and too many other things to list.
Tonight it was the three of us and the baby. We went to a fun little Mexican restaurant to exchange Christmas gifts. We ate (yum), we opened (I almost cried at the thoughtfulness), and we laughed.
Then my son was passed to Nanny. He decided it would be fun to grab the straw in my freshly filled extra large sweet tea. Nanny got a shower of sweet tea. It was incredibly funny (in retrospect-- I'm still trying to get over my embarrassment regarding normal baby things that really are funny but socially unacceptable).
I had a great time. But I miss them already. I wish we had nights like this more often.
We always seem to kick up the excitement a notch when we're together. If you see three women sitting together, howling with laughter (the beer-squirts-out-your-nose kind of laughter) then that is probably us.
We've had some interesting experiences-- almost melting into a puddle in a pretzel factory in July, having to restrain one of us from sticking their head in a chocolate fountain (not me! It was L.!), dining at La Fleur (to be pronounced with an extremely exaggerated French accent), trying to convince one of us that a bag of oregano was really Mary Jane, and too many other things to list.
Tonight it was the three of us and the baby. We went to a fun little Mexican restaurant to exchange Christmas gifts. We ate (yum), we opened (I almost cried at the thoughtfulness), and we laughed.
Then my son was passed to Nanny. He decided it would be fun to grab the straw in my freshly filled extra large sweet tea. Nanny got a shower of sweet tea. It was incredibly funny (in retrospect-- I'm still trying to get over my embarrassment regarding normal baby things that really are funny but socially unacceptable).
I had a great time. But I miss them already. I wish we had nights like this more often.
Monday, January 01, 2007
Denver, Denver, Denver
When we flew to my parents, we went through Denver. We were incredibly nervous about getting stuck.
We got to the airport out here, and we checked in online beforehad to make sure we'd have boarding passes. We checked three pieces of luggage-- duffels for DH and me and Mark's carseat. They were looking for volunteers for bumps when we waited in the gate area (two roundtrips and the best seats available on the next flight-- my mom would have killed me, though). We got into Denver and holy buckets-- the moving walkways had people leaning against them the entire length of the terminal.
We got to our gate in Denver and saw that the 6:30 flight to Rapid was just leaving at 8:45. This made me worried because our flight was scheduled to leave at 9:00. Mark was fussy (not feeling well) and I didn't want to sit for over two hours with a baby up way past his bedtime. Our flight was not listed. All of a sudden, our flight was being called. We hustled to our plane and were surprised at the open seats. We sat (!) for what seemed like an hour and then took off.
We got into Rapid at roughly 11:20 pm. We got our duffels and... no carseat! After waiting in line for a half hour, we discovered that the carseat was safely in... Denver. I asked the rep what I was going to do and he first said that they had loaner carseats. But ooops! They were all gone. And gee, he had no idea what I should do. I then called the hospital for a loaner. No loaner. I called the police for a loaner. They called the airport fire department to see if they had a loaner (uh, okay...). No loaner. The police could take Mark to our hotel, but we'd probably have to wait for 60-90 minutes. So the police told me to go to the 24-hour Wal-Mart. (Happy Holidays from Rapid City.)
We finally got to the hotel at about 1:30 and the hotel desk clerk had saved up all of her venom just for us-- she leered at us as we walked in and we stated that we had already checked in. She made a snotty comment back about how she knew everyone was already checked in and I responded that we'd just arrived from Denver (i.e. back off, wench).
We got to the room and discovered that the double queen room we reserved was, a single king room with a hide-a-bed. So off DH marched to deal with venomous wenchy desk clerk (who chose to argue with him-- her mistake!) and we soon had our double queen room. Bedtime was at 2:30 am. (Local time, 4:30 am here.)
Fortunately, the trip got much better from there. We enjoyed our time in Wyoming and South Dakota, for the most part (more on my experiences in my dying hometown in a future post). Mark was appropriately spoiled by grandma. We were appropriately spoiled with free babysitting.
Fun trip. Except for Carolyn, the wickedest desk clerk in the West.
We got to the airport out here, and we checked in online beforehad to make sure we'd have boarding passes. We checked three pieces of luggage-- duffels for DH and me and Mark's carseat. They were looking for volunteers for bumps when we waited in the gate area (two roundtrips and the best seats available on the next flight-- my mom would have killed me, though). We got into Denver and holy buckets-- the moving walkways had people leaning against them the entire length of the terminal.
We got to our gate in Denver and saw that the 6:30 flight to Rapid was just leaving at 8:45. This made me worried because our flight was scheduled to leave at 9:00. Mark was fussy (not feeling well) and I didn't want to sit for over two hours with a baby up way past his bedtime. Our flight was not listed. All of a sudden, our flight was being called. We hustled to our plane and were surprised at the open seats. We sat (!) for what seemed like an hour and then took off.
We got into Rapid at roughly 11:20 pm. We got our duffels and... no carseat! After waiting in line for a half hour, we discovered that the carseat was safely in... Denver. I asked the rep what I was going to do and he first said that they had loaner carseats. But ooops! They were all gone. And gee, he had no idea what I should do. I then called the hospital for a loaner. No loaner. I called the police for a loaner. They called the airport fire department to see if they had a loaner (uh, okay...). No loaner. The police could take Mark to our hotel, but we'd probably have to wait for 60-90 minutes. So the police told me to go to the 24-hour Wal-Mart. (Happy Holidays from Rapid City.)
We finally got to the hotel at about 1:30 and the hotel desk clerk had saved up all of her venom just for us-- she leered at us as we walked in and we stated that we had already checked in. She made a snotty comment back about how she knew everyone was already checked in and I responded that we'd just arrived from Denver (i.e. back off, wench).
We got to the room and discovered that the double queen room we reserved was, a single king room with a hide-a-bed. So off DH marched to deal with venomous wenchy desk clerk (who chose to argue with him-- her mistake!) and we soon had our double queen room. Bedtime was at 2:30 am. (Local time, 4:30 am here.)
Fortunately, the trip got much better from there. We enjoyed our time in Wyoming and South Dakota, for the most part (more on my experiences in my dying hometown in a future post). Mark was appropriately spoiled by grandma. We were appropriately spoiled with free babysitting.
Fun trip. Except for Carolyn, the wickedest desk clerk in the West.
Happy New Year
Hello again, and Happy New Year!!!
We're back from our holiday travels. We had a good time, and I will blog about it in future posts.
It is New Year's Day, and it is time for resolutions.
1) I am going to forgive myself for grieving my pre-baby life. It's okay to miss the freedom that I had before. I'm going to cut myself slack for being angry and sad that being a parent entails more responsibility than I had anticipated.
2) I am going to allow myself to feel beautiful. The aforementioned responsibilities will always be there. I feel more confident and happy when I am taking care of myself. I plan to stop going to work with dripping hair and no makeup.
3) I am going to work on making the house into the place we want to live. I learned a big lesson when my parents sold my childhood home. As my folks prepared their house for sale, they made it look great. They were sad that they had never enjoyed the improvements that they made. I plan on working with my DH to make this place into the oasis we want it to be.
4) I plan to carve out time for my friends. While my friends have been understanding of my mommy-transition, I want to spend time more time with them this year.
5) I plan to tackle the clutter that takes over my home and my classroom. I need to plan for clutter control and take charge of my piles of stuff.
6) I want to blog more. I think about blogging more than I actually do. I'm going to hit the keyboard this year!
Well, I think I've laid out enough resolutions to tackle this year. Happy New Year, and I wish the best to you in 2007!
We're back from our holiday travels. We had a good time, and I will blog about it in future posts.
It is New Year's Day, and it is time for resolutions.
1) I am going to forgive myself for grieving my pre-baby life. It's okay to miss the freedom that I had before. I'm going to cut myself slack for being angry and sad that being a parent entails more responsibility than I had anticipated.
2) I am going to allow myself to feel beautiful. The aforementioned responsibilities will always be there. I feel more confident and happy when I am taking care of myself. I plan to stop going to work with dripping hair and no makeup.
3) I am going to work on making the house into the place we want to live. I learned a big lesson when my parents sold my childhood home. As my folks prepared their house for sale, they made it look great. They were sad that they had never enjoyed the improvements that they made. I plan on working with my DH to make this place into the oasis we want it to be.
4) I plan to carve out time for my friends. While my friends have been understanding of my mommy-transition, I want to spend time more time with them this year.
5) I plan to tackle the clutter that takes over my home and my classroom. I need to plan for clutter control and take charge of my piles of stuff.
6) I want to blog more. I think about blogging more than I actually do. I'm going to hit the keyboard this year!
Well, I think I've laid out enough resolutions to tackle this year. Happy New Year, and I wish the best to you in 2007!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)