Okay, I really want to post some things over here, but I just can't get moving lately, for some reason. I was going to say I have had writers' block, but that isn't really it either. I've had a couple of great ideas float up to the surface of my brain, but I've yet to make it to a computer in time to fish them out. I'm sure there's a great journal entry or two waiting to be salvaged from the ocean floor, but I'm going to have to wait on that.
My students have been writing lately, though, so I've been enjoying being at the other end of the writers' conversation. My eighth graders have been writing poetry...with all of the angst and incongruity that comes with it at that age. Many of them have been coming up with fabulous things...they amaze me. Extended metaphors comparing gossip to a flame, the baseball season to a parade, or a tiny, speechless baby, to a delicate, silent dancer. I think my favorite was a boy who looked at a brave solid soldier on the outside, and then described his fear on the inside. Their poetry is intense, and I love it!
In contrast, my seventh graders have been creating newspapers, which are a hoot to read, because their assignment was to write everything as if it were happening fifty years from now. There is a wonderful sense of hope that comes through in their views--cures for cancer, world peace, even the Bills winning the Superbowl--all these wonderful things show up in their world from the future. They love to tease their teachers a little, too. Throughout their stories, I have blown up a Thanksgiving turkey, run for president (and lost), and been permanently stuck in a window while protesting the closing of our school. My favorite is when I was the first 87-year-old American Idol winner singing my hit songs: Do the 'Do Now', A Lot is Not One Word, and The Five Parts of a Friendly Letter. Their sense of humor is one of the many reasons why I love this age!
So school is good and my house is clean...some things are great. But my migraines are back, my journal's neglected, and a Child-Who-Shall-Not-Be-Named is failing science. And, trust me, the list goes on. For some reason, I just can't get it all together at the same time. I feel like all around me are people who can juggle it all and do fine, but I just can't. Consistently, at least.
At any given time, someone who met me and just got a little snapshot of my life, would think I was either very put together, or a perfect dope! If my house is immaculate, I guarantee there are a mess of papers on my desk at school. If there are groceries in the cupboard, I probably didn't make it to church this week. If I'm all caught up grading papers, my roots are probably showing and my eyebrows need to be waxed!
And it isn't really juggling, it's more like spinning plates. I'm a carnival worker running back and forth between them, and whenever I get a few spinning beautifully, I'm jumping to catch one and watching another fall to the ground. It's an awful metaphor, I know, but I really can visualize it! Right now I'm watching a few shining plates while my journal plate slows to a wobbly roll.
Sigh. I'll try to get it spinning soon.
Monday, November 28
Tuesday, November 22
Welcome
I am yet another former AOLer trying to decide whether I want to move or not. While I have no passionate philosophical problems with the decision to muck up the journals with ads over there, I do think that they are positively ugly. And...scratch that...I do have a little bit of a problem with it. If anyone is going to choose who places advertisements above my words, it should be me. Yet I feel very comfortable in my digs over in J-land, and I'm just not ready to leave.
With that said, I've decided to set up a little tent over here and see how I like the view. My AOL journal is still in place, but will be a little dusty while I move some things in here at Blogger.
So for now, I guess I'd like to introduce myself. I lost in a forest of testosterone, married with four sons. Tim is 17, and just got a new car, Dan, 14, is my runner, , Ben 8, loves to pose for any picture, and my little loverboy, Matt, who just turned 5.
Despite the fact that I am a middle school English teacher, good editors will catch me in an error or two, because sometimes I get a little carried away (love that spellcheck, though, Blogger). I like to write about life, and what I learn from it, and those have been my best entries. Every once in a while, I even sneak in a poem.
Please stop in and check out this spot a few times. I love to write, but it means so much more when it's read, and I'd be pleased to make your acquaintance.
Tina
With that said, I've decided to set up a little tent over here and see how I like the view. My AOL journal is still in place, but will be a little dusty while I move some things in here at Blogger.
So for now, I guess I'd like to introduce myself. I lost in a forest of testosterone, married with four sons. Tim is 17, and just got a new car, Dan, 14, is my runner, , Ben 8, loves to pose for any picture, and my little loverboy, Matt, who just turned 5.
Despite the fact that I am a middle school English teacher, good editors will catch me in an error or two, because sometimes I get a little carried away (love that spellcheck, though, Blogger). I like to write about life, and what I learn from it, and those have been my best entries. Every once in a while, I even sneak in a poem.
Please stop in and check out this spot a few times. I love to write, but it means so much more when it's read, and I'd be pleased to make your acquaintance.
Tina
Tuesday, November 15
Far From Perfect
Sometimes I allow myself to pretend that I am "perfectly" average. You know, average house, average salary, average kids. In a boring way, really. I mean, how much more dull can you get than a teacher married to a cop, raising kids in a rather sheltered corner of suburbia?
I know that we in no way qualify for "perfect," though. By what I read in the media, we are far from it. I never used cloth diapers, I hated breast feeding, and I actually spanked my children occasionally. I regularly use spit to wash their faces, and have even fed them cereal for dinner. My house? Don't even ask. The dishes don't match and neither does the furniture. I daresay if Martha Stewart were faced with Living here, she'd opt for jail.
I wonder, too, if the average family is as weird as we are. Does anyone sing for no reason (and as badly) as I do? Are other mothers surrounded by boys who consider noisy body functions to be a daily source of entertainment?
Okay, I know we are far from perfect, (and I spend far too much time fretting over that distance) but I look for ways that we are far from average all the time. For one thing, I get just a little flak about the size of our family. My "big" family of four boys (something like 2.7 more than the average) gets a wise crack every now and then. "Were ya' tryin' for that girl?" or "All them babies! Hyuck, now y'all know what's causin' that, right?"
Hilarious.
Four kids is what I grew up with, and I just never thought of it as big. Until all four of them decided to play a sport during the same season, but that's another story.
When I was a kid, I thought to be perfectly average would be a shame. A failure even. I was gonna be well above average, a shining star, an expert in my field. La, la, la...Why do I suddenly have an flashback of myself singing into my deoderant-stick microphone in front of my bedroom mirror?
I've since discovered, as I'm sure so many others have, that--while the absence of superstardom certainly can be boring at times (as a matter of fact, I'd call that an understatement)--it certainly can be perfectly wonderful. And to tell the truth, I doubt that anyone is "perfectly" average.
Thus, this journal was born. Welcome.
I know that we in no way qualify for "perfect," though. By what I read in the media, we are far from it. I never used cloth diapers, I hated breast feeding, and I actually spanked my children occasionally. I regularly use spit to wash their faces, and have even fed them cereal for dinner. My house? Don't even ask. The dishes don't match and neither does the furniture. I daresay if Martha Stewart were faced with Living here, she'd opt for jail.
I wonder, too, if the average family is as weird as we are. Does anyone sing for no reason (and as badly) as I do? Are other mothers surrounded by boys who consider noisy body functions to be a daily source of entertainment?
Okay, I know we are far from perfect, (and I spend far too much time fretting over that distance) but I look for ways that we are far from average all the time. For one thing, I get just a little flak about the size of our family. My "big" family of four boys (something like 2.7 more than the average) gets a wise crack every now and then. "Were ya' tryin' for that girl?" or "All them babies! Hyuck, now y'all know what's causin' that, right?"
Hilarious.
Four kids is what I grew up with, and I just never thought of it as big. Until all four of them decided to play a sport during the same season, but that's another story.
When I was a kid, I thought to be perfectly average would be a shame. A failure even. I was gonna be well above average, a shining star, an expert in my field. La, la, la...Why do I suddenly have an flashback of myself singing into my deoderant-stick microphone in front of my bedroom mirror?
I've since discovered, as I'm sure so many others have, that--while the absence of superstardom certainly can be boring at times (as a matter of fact, I'd call that an understatement)--it certainly can be perfectly wonderful. And to tell the truth, I doubt that anyone is "perfectly" average.
Thus, this journal was born. Welcome.
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