I woke up at 10.30.
Apparently, just before Benson was able to figure out who bugged the governor's mansion, I fell into a deep sleep and stayed there for about four hours.
Suddenly, my head was killing me.
I hadn't had any warning of a sinus migraine, but now it was coming on hard. I decided to take some tylenols and try to wake up at 2 or 3 in the morning.
I succeeded in waking up, but I still have the hellacious headache, and I wonder many things right now. One: if a good puke might set me right. Two: if I'm going to school today. Three: If I AM going to school, am I going to have time to get done what I need.
All these, as it feels my stomach is about to be, are up in the air. I drift off again.
Now it's near nine. In the past few hours I have arranged for a sub, stolen the trascan from the kitchen to put beside my bed and had a realistic-enough dream about writing these damn blogs that when I woke up, I was sure they had already done.
This is the close of a big week, and I really couldn't afford being sick today. Not only is tomorrow a test, but it's also the day we have to meet with the conservator. We have a lot of organizing yet to do, and I've yet to even speak to John or Trevor today. I will have to work extremely hard tonight to make up for what I missed last night and this morning. I fear that these sinus headaches are starting to come more frequent. Used to be, they would come once a month maybe. Now, this is two in two weeks time. I can't take that many days out, and I can't see myself going to work when I'm down with one of these. I'm not sure how this will all play out.
Again, I am not a fan of writing this blog. As should be obvious, I have for the entirety of this page written for sake of a wordcount when I didn't have anything important to say. It annoys me to have to attach my name to writing that isn't representative of my feelings or my skill. And as my coping mechanism these days is to put annoyances out of mind, I find I have very little that I want to talk about.
Anything that is worth talking about will go into the book later.
____________________________________
My grading:
The system of grading that works best for me is to make sure that any IP that assign for a formal grade is multiple choice, as I will have checked the students' understanding of the steps involved in getting the answer during guided practice. This allows an answer sheet that is much more easily graded. If, I do not see that the student has mastered the steps in the guided practice, I will tell them that the IP is for a grade but not count it, generally assigning the students to do more than just give the answer.
Having very simple IP assessments also allows for getting grading help quite easily. If I find that I have five minutes extra at the end of class, this works out just right for my kids to take the assessments, trade em, and grade em. This done, come the evening, all I have to do is enter scores. I generally let the first person finished with a test, grade that test also. I have trustworthy kids, and I see nothing wrong with letting the kids grade, especially since they see it as a fun incentive.
Also, I always make sure that the kids put their answers on notebook paper. That way, I can take up their answers and we still have the worksheets to review. I like to get in every bit of review and remediation I can. Having them work on the sheets presents being able to do this within the same class period.
As for bellringers, these are generally graded as all or nothing, although sometimes I bend and grade them on a scale of quarters.
I don't usually give homework. If I do, I rarely grade it, although I always tell them that I do. We will go over it.
By the end of the week, I generally have about eight grades left to enter, three of these coming from Friday. It is a very simple process, and it keeps me from having to do that much on the weekends.
One thing I do not do very well, is work into the class period times to give grades back to students. Most of the time, they get to see their grades immediately after trade and grade, or at the end of a testing period, but I rarely let kids come up and see their averages.
I'm lying here on the couch.
Yes, we need state tests. Of course we do.
1. I like to listen to Coast to Coast on the radio, but sometimes the ghost stories freak me out.
2. I'm wayyy better at scrabble than is John Daniel Marsh.
3. Though I studied English literature and writing in school, I don't particularly like to read.
4. I wish I were a World War I fighter pilot.
5. When I was a little kid, I had frequent nightmares about the apocalypse and going to hell. For a while as a kid, I thought these were prophetic dreams and the world was about to end. As my bedroom window faced the east, where the town of Iuka lit up the night sky and train horns echoed through the hollow we live in, I was scared the light from the east was the second coming, and the horns were the trumpets of doom.
6. I like plain olive green baseball caps. A lot. I have several in case I lose one.
7. My two best friends, Dan and Zack, are nothing alike. I think that is weird.
8. I usually play devil's advocate, and argue any point even when I agree, on the whole, with what is said. I don't like it when a person is sure of anything.
9. I spend time on the highway observing for further proof of my hypothesis that really fat women are the worst drivers. So far, the theory has held up.
10. I am crippled with social anxiety disorder, though I just call it being shy and weird. I am really nervous when surrounded by people, when I am the focus of attention, or when people watch while I work on a machine. I usually don't talk a lot. I enjoy learning new things, but don't like people to watch while I learn. Left alone, I can figure most anything out, or learn do anything pretty well. It is a big fear of mine that people take my shyness the wrong way.
11. I am pretty good at a whole lot of things, but as a consequence, I fear I'll never be great at any one thing.
12. Not too many people really know me all that well.
13. My right testicle is a smidgeon lower than the left.
14. Now, a few people know me better than they'd like.
15. I think shorts are gay-looking and never wear them.
16. I like boardgames more than most people...
17. If I could get away with making fraudulent licenses and diplomas, I'd like to be one of those guys that is doctor one day and a lawyer or professor the next.
18. Marlon Brando used to look a lot like me. Before he was dead.
19. When he gets around to the throne, I will be able to say I went to school with the King of England. I think that is pretty cool.
20. I like old things in general. I like going to the drug store in Corinth just because it feels like it's out of another time.
21. I can't grow a full beard.
22. Though the psychometric test they gave me in the third grade said I was supposed to be a mechanical genius and a linguistic nothing-special, I ended up turning down an full-ride engineering scholarship to State, going to Ole Miss and majoring in English and Classics instead.
23. I want to learn to bull-ride and pilot a plane.
At the same time.
24. My pet peeve is people who are intellectually elitist and unversed in matters of practicality.
25. I drink about 12 cans of diet drink a day.
Comment 1: Why you talkin about that test. We don't have to take that test this year.
Comment 2: Mista Coakley prepares his kids for the test. They say you don't do that.
The instant I saw you across the bank.
My hands red from cold,
Up to my knees in a slow current
Of surprise and shame,
"Oh gosh! Dear, you scared me!"
You smiled when I exclaimed.
I could only guess how long you'd been there,
and fear it'd been too long.
But...
How could I have known.
I'd been there for weeks
And never seen another soul
Who'd wade into that creek
Into that kind of cold
To forsake the traffic above
To bundle up in self
And bow down
To digging up old bones
You see,
Two hours'd passed...
And then.
Out of my core,
I tried to restrain it
But it wouldn't be ignored.
Worse every minute.
I had to give in.
But the wilds seemed too far to go.
So I found a sandy spot
With knee-high cane,
Lowered the waders,
And looked up to hidden, passing lanes.
Atonement I didn't have
So I relied on an old Indian trick
I had learned
On pilgrimage there
When flesh revolted
Where only the devils cared:
Cut off the Y flap.
Buried the sin.
And made my return.
Not two sieves had I made
When I saw you up on high.
Your expression
was as your outfit.
What I wondered
You hadn't said,
And asking I wouldn't try.
Had circumstances been different,
I wonder if the result would be the same:
An awkward moment,
Too brief to learn a name.
You'd smile politely: "I'm sorry."
And walk off...
While I'd pick my teeth
with wondering and shame.
ONE HUNDRED AND NINE TEETH TODAY, PLUS AN INDIAN DRILL.
a romantic moment between tommy and wanda bonds.
1. Fully immerse yourself in the real world. There's a number of directions you can go when you're coming out of college. Taking the service route is always a good option, but with most outfits, especially foreign ones, you're going to come back with a camera full of photos and a void in your heart--you'll realize that you've only 'done something' on the most minimal level--you went on a vacation that had a lot of poor people in it. MTC is something apart. With MTC, you are filled with accomplishment. You have to be. No program can take as much out of you as this one does without making replacement. You get out of it what you put into it, and with this program you are forced to give it everything you have. There is a lot of sentiment going around in other blogs on this topic about how demanding teaching is, and I agree with that, but a lot of what you learn in this program isn't limited to teaching. What you get here is the essence of every field, rarified--the communication of ideas, tact and diplomacy, the research, the paperwork, the chance not to simply DO the job, but to make an art of it...the leadership. You're gonna need this stuff wherever you go, and in my many, many years of sundry blue-collar and academic pursuits, I can't think of another time that nothing less than total commitment to these arenae was required of me. I can't think of a better opportunity than one that allows you to grow yourself while helping, however minimally, to solve what is a gaping domestic concern.

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