Sunday, March 29, 2009

The Little Mermaid










Yep, that's my boy! He cracks me up and I love him more than life. We took a little trip to Hot Springs, AR and went into a kind of curosity shop there. That's a stuffed real lion in the background. My boy thought I was ahead of him and was suprized when I turned and snapped the photo from closer than he though! The shot I missed was the one of his big cheese eating grin right after the flash went off!




We stayed three days, which was really two days too many. I was very ready to be home the third day, but I did get to use the time to read my book through. Wonderful book, by the way, Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neal Hurston. Yummy enough to eat with a spoon! Such brilliant, rich imagery, ". . . scents were crushed from the earth by his feet . . . ." Yes!













Also lost a few bucks at the horse races. My horse in this race was so far behind that he's not eve in the shot! He was 50 to 1. Didn't work out this time, but those are my kind of odds!




Now that I know how to put photos in here, I guess I'll do it more often.







Friday, March 20, 2009

Spring Break a Leg!

Finally! Spring break has begun! On the way out of the building today I caught my heel on a ridge in the sidewalk and down I went! Very embarrassing, but not really broken, just wrenched a bit so that it's painful. The Friday before Spring break last year, I went down a flight of stairs on my bottom and broke my tail bone! Such grace is surely rare.

I have to clean my house tomorrow. It's a pit, but I can't help it--I'm only here after school and have to feed my son, make sure he's had a bath, do homework of my own and grad papers, and whatever else I can get done before falling into bed. The house simply HAS to be the last priority. But the maintenance came in to "make a repair," though, I have no idea what needed reparing, and now I've got an ugly letter bitching about it. Bastids. I'm only one person, and I'm not actually a pig when I have a choice about it.

But then, Monday is for business and Tuesday I intend to be out of here for at least three days! My boy is really looking forward to the break, too and I've promised to play checkers with him a LOT! Yahoo! And when we come back there are only 5 weeks left--and one of those will be nothing but standardised testing! Almost done, baby! Almost!

Still have NO idea what will come after. No idea at ALL!

Sunday, March 15, 2009

Warm Stars

I know it's been ages since I've posted. I'm going through a strange time. I don't really know how to say whatever it is I need to say. The words are all tangled and I can't work them out.

I took my last praxis exam yesterday and may have blown it. I know how they score these things, but not how they're weighted. I bet I blew it, though, and won't know for a month. I'd do smashingly well, too, if I took it again. Maybe I should just schedule the next one and not wait for results? I know I screwed up and how, and why. Just don't know how much it will matter. I'm guessing just enough to kill my chances. Anyway, this is like a anchor around my neck at the moment.

I also am feeling pretty damn pissed at my "friends" at the moment. I had to drive three hours to take this test in the first place and started asking two weeks ago if one of them could keep my boy over night so I could drive up the night before and be rested for the exam. One will not even let him play at her house because her boyfriend is a petty asshole. Just too much to write out now, but he's mad at me because I refused to live in his slummy house, which is not fit for animals, when I moved here.

The other, my best friend from childhood, likes to subtly imply that I'm not a good enough parent. Her two are adopted and, in my opinion, she has spent a lot of time playing parent, though she's getting better. But she and her husband are offended by the words "penis" and "vagina," for the sake of Sam, and don't like it that I answer his questions about the body and sexual issues, like where babies come from, in a frank and truthful way.

They also act like I'm a terrible mother because I don't force my son to go to bed alone at night. It's just the two of us. We go to bed at the same time and if I need to, I get back up when he's asleep. What the hell's wrong with that? But then, we aren't really friends any longer. That kills me, but we never talk, even now she's pregnant with her own child, she never has anything to say to me. I'm heartbroken and pissed off.

And I had to take my son with me and leave him unattended for almost 2 hours while I took the test. He was fine, but I was so worried about him. That did not help things at all. I'm sure when they find out that this is the way I handled the situation, she and her husband will go home and talk about how they would NEVER have done such a thing with their kids. Well, they have motherfucking options, now don't they!

This is one huge reason I still consider teaching overseas again once I'm done with this. As a foreigner overseas, there's a built in support network to some extent and it's much easier to find domestic help when needed. I have no family to speak of but my mom, and she's so feeble these days. I don't think I'll have her around much longer and don't want to miss the end of her life, but this is very, very, very hard to do--life with no support system and a child to care for.

All day long, I've felt like I was beaten with hoses last night, but feel a little better now. I guess just needed to express some of this. Maybe now I can write my lesson plans. I have to be videoed in the morning. Lord, please let this go well!

Oh, the title. I'm cold. It's gotten cold here again. I keep hopping the last cold spell has past and Spring will stick, but not yet, apparently. I could use a warm night, on top of a hill somewhere, with a clear sky full of stars. I LOVE the stars. I used to want very badly to become an astronaut because I wanted to get closer to them. They still take my breath away, and I could use some time alone with them.