Lester

LESTER

Lester was given a magic wish
By the goblin who lives in the banyan tree,
And with his wish he wished for two more wishes--
So now instead of just one wish, he cleverly had three.
And with each one of these
He simply wished for three more wishes,
Which gave him three old wishes, plus nine new.
And with each of these twelve
He slyly wished for three more wishes,
Which added up to forty-six--or is it fifty-two?
Well anyway, he used each wish
To wish for wishes 'til he had
Five billion, seven million, eighteen thousand thirty-four.
And then he spread them on the ground
And clapped his hands and danced around
And skipped and sang, and then sat down
And wished for more.
And more...and more...they multiplied
While other people smiled and cried
And loved and reached and touched and felt.
Lester sat amid his wealth
Stacked mountain-high like stacks of gold,
Sat and counted--and grew old.
And then one Thursday night they found him
Dead--with his wishes piled around him.
And they counted the lot and found that not
A single one was missing.
All shiny and new--here, take a few
And think of Lester as you do.
In a world of apples and kisses and shoes
He wasted his wishes on wishing.

-Shel Silverstein

Most exciting play in baseball

You NEVER see this. It is seriously exciting.

It's the Climb

Something you should know about me: I love my job. Despite the fact that I often complain about the awkward 12 year olds, I know that what I'm doing is important. There are a few aspects that I don't particularly love, though.

I have always been a very goal-oriented person. Nothing gives me more satisfaction than completing my daily to-do list or finishing a report. Yesterday, I came to the realization that my profession is not particularly suited to people who thrive on short-term goals. My students will not be "finished products" by the time they leave me in five weeks. Will they have grown? Yes. Will they be better than they were before? Hopefully. But they won't be something that I have helped to complete. That sense of accomplishment I enjoy so much won't be there.

Maybe I should reframe this (yeah, HOD) to think about it in a different way, but I have a really hard time. Our big standardized test is next week, and I am terrified that my students won't "make the grade". Next year, the standards will be raised even higher and we will be adding subjects to be tested. I can't help but feel like I am working against....nothing. We're raising the standards, and it feels like we are constantly working to make it harder on ourselves. Don't get me wrong--I think that we should keep the standards high and expect challenging things. At the same time, I can do the best job I have ever done. I can put in more time than any other teacher in the district and can teach my heart out while I have the students in my care. I can do all of that and STILL not make the grade. It's not dependent on me, it's dependent on them. I can't control their ability/willingness to meet the goals we have set forth for them.

For any goal-oriented control freak (like myself), this is the scariest possible position.

Positivity

I've recently realized the power of positive thinking. A few weeks ago, I was able to attend a fabulous training for teachers. At this training, we were told to practice some things that we (especially I) weren't particularly good at. Normally, I am easily discouraged and tend to be overflowing with complaints--you and I both know this is true. The leader required us to say "This is easy" every time we were unsuccessful with the difficult task. I found myself being more and more interested in persevering with the activity, even though I was absolutely terrible.

It just so happened that we were working with fractions when I got back to school, and I was able to teach this technique to my students. (In case you don't know, the word "fraction" strikes fear in the very soul of any 6th grade child.) They really took to it--every time they were feeling frustrated, they would stop and say this phrase aloud. It was crazy! They even requested that we turn this phrase into a poster, which now is permanently displayed in my classroom. We can all tell when a student is feeling particularly frustrated with something, because they will look over at that sign and say the phrase. It's just a simple reminder that this WILL BE easy really, really soon--you just have to get the hang of it first.

The recent introduction of the new Memphis head coach (Go Tigers!) brought positive thinking to the top of my list again. Our new coach, Josh Pastner, really focused on this concept. There are some sayings that he repeated more than once during his introductory press conference which demonstrate this idea of positive thinking.

I normally don't post things this "deep", but I'm trying it out for once. This is something I find really powerful in my life, and would like to continue working on. I know there are several well-written books out there on this topic, and would like any suggestions you might have! Right now, I'm reading Tuesdays with Morrie, which contains some interesting viewpoints on positivity. That book will be over soon, and I'll need another...

Haircut from Hell

Yesterday, I went to get my hair cut. In case you don't know, I have had quite a hard time finding a good salon and stylist since moving to Nashville. The same woman has cut my hair since I was about 4 years old, until now. I even drove home for a haircut throughout college. After much CitySearch searching, and a couple of not-so-great experiences, I thought I had found my place. It's a nice salon close to school, with a really nice stylist who gave me a great cut last time. It was so good that I pre-booked my next appointment (which I never do--I can't think that far in advance).

I went back yesterday. She rushed me to get my hair washed and then started cutting before I told her what I wanted. I stopped her, showed her the picture I printed off and explained that I didn't just want it trimmed, I wanted to change the style a little bit. She gave me a great cut and then started to style it. She put in some sort of product that was supposed to make it not frizzy and then went to town with the hairdryer and round brush. During this process, she scorched my scalp in several places. It still hurts. Then, she revealed to me that the product "wasn't agreeing with my hair", so she needed to go rinse it out. Mind you, she had been burning my scalp for the past 30 minutes trying to dry out this product. I said okay, let's do it.

She washed it and dryed it again (further injuring my scalp), only to discover that this substance does NOT wash out. My hair looked disgusting. I had to go home and cover it with a baseball cap to be seen in public. Last night, I shampooed FIVE TIMES trying to get this goop out of my hair, to no avail. I can't wear a baseball cap to work on Monday, so I'm open to any and all suggestions of how to get this out of my hair. This was a frustrating experience, to say the least.

AND TONIGHT IS OPENING NIGHT, so I'm not really all that bent out of shape. I have peace and happiness in my future.

My Apologies

I promised a post last Thursday night about the Disney portion of my trip. After quite the disappointing Thursday evening (Thank you, Tigers...), I didn't feel up to posting. I was going to post them last night, but former "Coach" Calipari ripped my heart out. Trust me, I have so many opinions about this, but I can't post them here....they are laced with profanity.

Let's just ignore all that and talk about the Happiest Place on Earth! I hadn't seen Koro for about a year, so I was really excited to get to hang out with him. I got there Tuesday night, and we just watched Dreamgirls and ordered pizza. It was great to just chill out after a looooong day of flying. No pictures from that (St. Patrick's) day.

The second day we went to the parks. Koro actually got called in to work that morning, so I went with his roommate Nina. He did a show that morning before we got there, and we were excited to see him do the second show. Sadly, he was sick and they wouldn't let him do it. We had fun, nonetheless. Going to Disney with people who work there is the way to go! They know how to get around all the lame stuff and what time everything is and where to go and where not to go and I highly recommend it.

Here are some of my favorite pictures from the time at Disney:




With that, TTFN.

Opening Day: 4 DAYS