Well, I've been a 6th grade math teacher at Michigan Technical Academy in Detroit for a week now, and it's going great. I got really sick on Friday, though, and hopefully I'll get over it by tomorrow.
Anyhow, there's a lot of stuff that I've learned in my 5 short days as a real grown up teacher, and college didn't prepare me for any of it.
1. African American children have naturally loud voices. If you want to be heard you have to get their attention first, and get them to stop talking. Which is not easy.
2. Learning names is not as difficult as I thought it would be.
3. Sometimes parents just don't care.
4. Putting an apostrophe at any random place in a name is completely acceptable--if not extremely common.
5. My students have no idea what Alternative music is.
6. I know NOTHING about Black American history.
7. Hands off the 'fro.
8. Hip Hop Artists convey a message in their music, while Rappers focus on negative things. (I didn't know this at all)
9. Gas is cheaper on 8-Mile.
10. Nigeria has a track team.*
*I had my students doing a scavenger hunt through expository text to develop content reading strategies, and they each had a different book. B'onca had a book on Nigeria and she called me over and said "I really like this book! I didn't know any of this stuff!" And she turned the page, and there was a picture of some athletes running on a track and she looks at me in awe and says, "They have their own a track team!? [pause and think] I wonder if they have a cheerleading squad!?" It was really funny.
Sunday, August 28, 2005
Sunday, August 21, 2005
Mal my Pal
I have this great friend and she's one of the best.
She doesn't compare with any of the rest.
Her hair is super curly but you'd never know
Because she wears it back so she's ready to go.
She's got three brothers who are all pretty neat
and when I come over there's always something to eat.
We spend every weekend at her house or mine
My mom pretends it annoys her, but we know she's fine.
We take silly pictures for hours on end
Mal my Pal and me, we're friends til the end.
Wednesday, August 17, 2005
it's 11:00pm
My bedtime is 10:30pm.
I succumbed to peer pressure and stayed up until 11.
And by peer pressure I mean Mallory laying on me while I was laying in my bed falling asleep.
I love you, Mal.
Now I sleep.
I succumbed to peer pressure and stayed up until 11.
And by peer pressure I mean Mallory laying on me while I was laying in my bed falling asleep.
I love you, Mal.
Now I sleep.
Thursday, August 11, 2005
Oh man!
Thank you for all your encouragement, friends.
In other news:
How excited was I when I typed in www.olivianewtonjohn.com in hopes of possibly finding something i could use, and it turned out to be a real website! Oh man, you have no idea!
In other news:
How excited was I when I typed in www.olivianewtonjohn.com in hopes of possibly finding something i could use, and it turned out to be a real website! Oh man, you have no idea!
Sunday, August 07, 2005
The Lord Moves in Mysterous Ways
So while I pull out my sunglasses, and attempt to start the band back up I'll tell you all my story.
So I've been planning my big move out to OKC for a while now. I'd lined up a place to stay and found myself a temporary job until I can find a teaching one, and I'm all set to move. Then my mom calls and asks if we can delay it a week because Niki got some free tickets and was coming up to Michigan for the weekend (and it wouldn't make sense to be down there moving in while she was up here visiting). So I said sure, and that was that.
So I get a call from my good friend Vic Bliss the Friday before the Monday I was originally planning to move and he told me that he had a teaching job and there might be a position open for me and to give him a call. I was pretty much set on moving to Oklahoma, but I called him back anyway--just because it seemed like he'd gone a little out of his way to let me know about this opportunity. We played phone tag for a bit, and the following week while I was packing we finally got in touch with one another and he said there was a 6th grade math position open at the building he got a job at and that I should get my stuff in asap!
I told a few people from church that this might be a possibility, and they were elated because they were all (selfishly--they'll admit it) praying that I wouldn't leave. I dropped off my things and called every other day to check on the job but I knew that I wasn't going to change my plans on a last minute whim. I figured if God wanted me to stay here, he'd make it obvious.
So Friday night Niki comes home and she was going to stay til Sunday, and then me and Mom were going to leave to drive to OKC on Monday. Friday I start feeling a tad under the weather, but nothing serious. Saturday I wake up, and my throat is sore and I'm not feeling very well. With increasing intensity I becoming moaningly-begrudgingly ill. I don't have health insurance so I just lay around and moan while I hope it passes. God sure has a funny way of intervening, doesn't he? Sunday a lady from church kindly called in an Rx for Penecilin for us because my mom classified my symptoms into the category of tonsilitis and an ear infection.
So after Saturday, Sunday, and Monday of not eating or drinking except for when I had to manage a swallow to take my pills; I finally started to choke down tablespoons of soup or cream of rice (because let's face it--I was starving). By Tuesday I could nearly talk again, so I called to check on the job. No response yet. By Thursday I was back to my normal self completely--golfing regularly and everything, so I called and was informed that the position had been filled. My mom asked me what I wanted to do, and I said I'd like to stay around here and look for a little bit--since in all fairness I started looking in Oklahoma without even trying to look here because I've heard nothing but how people can't find jobs.
I go online, and sure enough, there's a math position open in not just a Livonia School, but the one down the road from me and the principal knows all of my siblings, and our neighbors down the street very very well. I put in the App. and went out for dinnner with some friends.
Halfway through dinner I notice I have a voicemail, so I check it, and it's a message from a principal in Tulsa. She would be "very interested in speaking with" me. WHAT!?
I decide to stay here, and now I've got a call from the state that had been silent on me for two months? So friday morning, I wake up and go jogging, and when I get home my mom says "well, when it rains it pours." Vic had called me and said the position at the school was still open and the principal wanted to interview me that day. I returned my Tulsa call, and left a voicemail becaus the principal wasn't it. I faxed my resume and letters of recommendation to the school in Detroit and also called them. No answer, I left a message.
I went golfing and waited around, and neither called back. I even tried calling back on several occasions, but with no response. I was pretty bummed.
All of the sudden, around 6, the phone rings. It's the principal from Tulsa. She said, in not so many words, that there was a job for me if I would move to Tulsa to fill it. I asked her if I could call her back the next day so I could have a night to think it over. I talked with my mom, and thought about it for a while, and I started looking at apt. prices and after about an hour I made up my mind to go to Tulsa. I need to just be on my own, and I knew that God would bless me with whatever decision I chose to make. So I'm sitting in my room, thinking about just loading up my car on Monday and heading out. And the phone rings.
It's the principal from the school in Detroit. She said she just happened to wander into her office to check her voicemail and saw my resume and called me back in hopes I'd be available to interview the next (Saturday) morning. I said sure.
I went to the interview with the mindset that I would do my best, but that I already had a job in Tulsa for me. Well, I got offered the Detroit job, and I accepted it, and I start Tomorrow.
Talk about your soap opera story!
So the good news is that I have a job.
The good news is that God provides, even when you don't know what you need.
The good news is that blessings are falling and soaking them up is feeling pretty nice.
The good news is.
So I've been planning my big move out to OKC for a while now. I'd lined up a place to stay and found myself a temporary job until I can find a teaching one, and I'm all set to move. Then my mom calls and asks if we can delay it a week because Niki got some free tickets and was coming up to Michigan for the weekend (and it wouldn't make sense to be down there moving in while she was up here visiting). So I said sure, and that was that.
So I get a call from my good friend Vic Bliss the Friday before the Monday I was originally planning to move and he told me that he had a teaching job and there might be a position open for me and to give him a call. I was pretty much set on moving to Oklahoma, but I called him back anyway--just because it seemed like he'd gone a little out of his way to let me know about this opportunity. We played phone tag for a bit, and the following week while I was packing we finally got in touch with one another and he said there was a 6th grade math position open at the building he got a job at and that I should get my stuff in asap!
I told a few people from church that this might be a possibility, and they were elated because they were all (selfishly--they'll admit it) praying that I wouldn't leave. I dropped off my things and called every other day to check on the job but I knew that I wasn't going to change my plans on a last minute whim. I figured if God wanted me to stay here, he'd make it obvious.
So Friday night Niki comes home and she was going to stay til Sunday, and then me and Mom were going to leave to drive to OKC on Monday. Friday I start feeling a tad under the weather, but nothing serious. Saturday I wake up, and my throat is sore and I'm not feeling very well. With increasing intensity I becoming moaningly-begrudgingly ill. I don't have health insurance so I just lay around and moan while I hope it passes. God sure has a funny way of intervening, doesn't he? Sunday a lady from church kindly called in an Rx for Penecilin for us because my mom classified my symptoms into the category of tonsilitis and an ear infection.
So after Saturday, Sunday, and Monday of not eating or drinking except for when I had to manage a swallow to take my pills; I finally started to choke down tablespoons of soup or cream of rice (because let's face it--I was starving). By Tuesday I could nearly talk again, so I called to check on the job. No response yet. By Thursday I was back to my normal self completely--golfing regularly and everything, so I called and was informed that the position had been filled. My mom asked me what I wanted to do, and I said I'd like to stay around here and look for a little bit--since in all fairness I started looking in Oklahoma without even trying to look here because I've heard nothing but how people can't find jobs.
I go online, and sure enough, there's a math position open in not just a Livonia School, but the one down the road from me and the principal knows all of my siblings, and our neighbors down the street very very well. I put in the App. and went out for dinnner with some friends.
Halfway through dinner I notice I have a voicemail, so I check it, and it's a message from a principal in Tulsa. She would be "very interested in speaking with" me. WHAT!?
I decide to stay here, and now I've got a call from the state that had been silent on me for two months? So friday morning, I wake up and go jogging, and when I get home my mom says "well, when it rains it pours." Vic had called me and said the position at the school was still open and the principal wanted to interview me that day. I returned my Tulsa call, and left a voicemail becaus the principal wasn't it. I faxed my resume and letters of recommendation to the school in Detroit and also called them. No answer, I left a message.
I went golfing and waited around, and neither called back. I even tried calling back on several occasions, but with no response. I was pretty bummed.
All of the sudden, around 6, the phone rings. It's the principal from Tulsa. She said, in not so many words, that there was a job for me if I would move to Tulsa to fill it. I asked her if I could call her back the next day so I could have a night to think it over. I talked with my mom, and thought about it for a while, and I started looking at apt. prices and after about an hour I made up my mind to go to Tulsa. I need to just be on my own, and I knew that God would bless me with whatever decision I chose to make. So I'm sitting in my room, thinking about just loading up my car on Monday and heading out. And the phone rings.
It's the principal from the school in Detroit. She said she just happened to wander into her office to check her voicemail and saw my resume and called me back in hopes I'd be available to interview the next (Saturday) morning. I said sure.
I went to the interview with the mindset that I would do my best, but that I already had a job in Tulsa for me. Well, I got offered the Detroit job, and I accepted it, and I start Tomorrow.
Talk about your soap opera story!
So the good news is that I have a job.
The good news is that God provides, even when you don't know what you need.
The good news is that blessings are falling and soaking them up is feeling pretty nice.
The good news is.
Tuesday, August 02, 2005
Can't Sleep. It's the pitts.
So I randomly (and I mean totally randomly) got a really bad (and by bad I mean uber painful) case of strep throat this weekend. It pretty much left me hungry and hurting, but I'm doing much better now. Amongst all of the TV watching I could fit in while I couldn't really do much else (except moan and say "ouch" because I'm kindof a wuss) I caught an interesting movie. I can't remember what it was called, but that's alright. It was pretty funny, but I couldn't laugh because it hurt too much. So I just watched it in as stoic of a mood as I could muster--all the while thinking "I always imagined Doris Day to be less 'normal' looking." (As it was my first Doris Day movie, so I'd never seen her before.)
Which brings me to my point:
Hypochondriacs.
Every once in a while I think I might be one. It's probably because I am such a wimp about being sick. It doesn't happen often, but I'll moan and groan with the best of them (cough cough my dad cough cough). I get the flu and have to throw up, I'm sitting in the bathroom crying at 2am while my mom is calling from her room, "Kari, go downstairs at least! We're trying to sleep!" Or I am laying on the couch with a high fever saying "shouldn't I be drinking more cold fluids?" and she'll respond with "take the tylenol and change your clothes when they get too sweaty." No mercy, seriously.
Sometimes, after I'm all better (which is usually only 1 or 2 days, because I suppose I'm resiliant) I think back on the experience and wonder if I couldn't have taken the pain without whining so much? Or maybe if it was only my imagination that it hurt so badly. I'm not sure. Probably.
So I guess what I have a hard time with is when people are constantly bringing up things that are wrong with them. Don't get me wrong, I care deeply about people. And I am also a good listener. But I don't give out pity very, um, generously. Maybe I get it from my mom, with her "suck it up" attitude when I'm sick. That's logical. But regardless, I have this horrible habbit of rolling my eyes at "poor me" people.
Now the occasional sob story is one thing, but you hypochondriacs drive me nuts! And the latest rage of hypochondraic is the kind of person who feeds off of misfortune. Not just illness related, but like pessimism gone terribly wrong.
I think I get frustrated with these people because I am a person who likes to fix things. Yes, I'm a great listener, but when you're done talking--whether you asked for it or not--I'm going to try to help you fix it.
You can't do that with hypochondriacs becasue they don't want to be fixed. They just want to be heard. I think the reason they always keep bringing up more and more things that are wrong is because every time you try to fix the first thing, it might mean you won't hear them anymore.
Okay, I'm out, because I just heard a really loud and abnormal noise inside my house and it's 2:30am so I have to go make sure everything is alright. That's a little scary.
I know,
I'll turn the lights on.
Which brings me to my point:
Hypochondriacs.
Every once in a while I think I might be one. It's probably because I am such a wimp about being sick. It doesn't happen often, but I'll moan and groan with the best of them (cough cough my dad cough cough). I get the flu and have to throw up, I'm sitting in the bathroom crying at 2am while my mom is calling from her room, "Kari, go downstairs at least! We're trying to sleep!" Or I am laying on the couch with a high fever saying "shouldn't I be drinking more cold fluids?" and she'll respond with "take the tylenol and change your clothes when they get too sweaty." No mercy, seriously.
Sometimes, after I'm all better (which is usually only 1 or 2 days, because I suppose I'm resiliant) I think back on the experience and wonder if I couldn't have taken the pain without whining so much? Or maybe if it was only my imagination that it hurt so badly. I'm not sure. Probably.
So I guess what I have a hard time with is when people are constantly bringing up things that are wrong with them. Don't get me wrong, I care deeply about people. And I am also a good listener. But I don't give out pity very, um, generously. Maybe I get it from my mom, with her "suck it up" attitude when I'm sick. That's logical. But regardless, I have this horrible habbit of rolling my eyes at "poor me" people.
Now the occasional sob story is one thing, but you hypochondriacs drive me nuts! And the latest rage of hypochondraic is the kind of person who feeds off of misfortune. Not just illness related, but like pessimism gone terribly wrong.
I think I get frustrated with these people because I am a person who likes to fix things. Yes, I'm a great listener, but when you're done talking--whether you asked for it or not--I'm going to try to help you fix it.
You can't do that with hypochondriacs becasue they don't want to be fixed. They just want to be heard. I think the reason they always keep bringing up more and more things that are wrong is because every time you try to fix the first thing, it might mean you won't hear them anymore.
Okay, I'm out, because I just heard a really loud and abnormal noise inside my house and it's 2:30am so I have to go make sure everything is alright. That's a little scary.
I know,
I'll turn the lights on.
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