Not the best pic but...

Im at my kids basketball game and felt compelled to take a moment to say i freakin love my job. Thats all.

Holiday Spirit Meets Need for Diversion

Alright, the secular holiday season is upon us, and Advent starts on Sunday. This calls for no-holds-barred Christmas spirit on every front. Let's start with the place I spend about half of my waking hours. At present my classroom is very plain. See:



A nice little classroom, but it's as merry as Scrooge's socks. This weekend, my big plan is to jingle-bell my way onto the bus to Target and Walreens to load up on decorative items. My chief emphasis in "decorative items" is lights. With some scrounging and some ingenuity, I plan to transform the above into something more like this:



You may laugh, but I'm not kidding. My design concept is "fire hazard". Don't tell my administration. Only due to constraints of time, talent, and treasure do I stop short of this:

I Hate Politics, part 2

Mike Huckabee is perfecting the art of "Monet speak", in which the collective statement sounds nice but upon closer examination is clearly a mess. From an interview:

Well, let's remember that all law establishes morality. That's what law does. The law of speeding is saying that it's immoral to go at 85 miles an hour. The morality is that we have established a 65-mile-an-hour limit. So that's what all law does: It establishes that it is wrong for me to murder you. We've determined that that's not a good idea.

That is so obviously false -- like "I swear those are real" factually wrong -- I don't think I really need to point out what's wrong with it for you, my Dear Intelligent Reader, but just for clarity's sake: the law establishes morality? Really, Mike Huckabee? I wasn't aware that going 70 in a 55 was immoral. I'm in a heap of moral trouble, man.

No, it doesn't work that way. in fact it's quite the opposite. Well, it should be anyway. If law established morality, then we could say man establishes morality. By extension we could say "Do whatever you darn well please, it don't make a lick of moral difference!"

Oh... right. We have said that.

To be fair, Mr. Huckabbe said this earlier in that same article:

If you believe it's a moral issue, then you really have to believe that morality does not change at the state line. That idea that morality is different in Massachusetts than it is in Texas is the rationale of the Civil War.

That seems like a more or less reasonable, solid-ish statement. Actually, come to think of it, isn't he sort of contradicting himself here?

My point, and why this goes under the heading of I Hate Politics, is that the man is trying so hard to establish himself as a person of strong moral principals, who could be relied on to "establish" good morals, that he's talking nonsense. This is what the political beast does to normal, rational people. I think I get what Huckabee is trying to say, and it's possible I actually agree with him in some measure, but the way he's verbally blubbering around punches gaping holes in his own card house. Possibly more troubling is the mess of people out there who will read/hear that, or some similar base-covering balderdash, and buy it for reasons of the He's-my-party's-best-shot, I-like-this-guy-already, Well-it's-better-than-the-alternative, variety.

Besides, I'm offended by his implication that I am somehow less awesome because I tend to edge the speedometer a wee tiny bit over where it's supposed to be. Seriously, who is more immoral: me, speeding to get to mass (I am speedier than thou), or the guy driving five under in the fast lane, inciting everyone around him to road rage? C'mon, Mike. Think about it.

Thanksgiven – A Wrap-Up Post

Well, it’s back to the convent. Dear Reader, you may well have guessed that I go with thoroughly mixed feelings, as I love my sisters but find myself quite attached to my family (silly, right?). I believe I have also been hit with the “almost Christmas” school blues, in which my excitement and joy in teaching suddenly seem less relative to my eagerness to get to and enjoy the break. Don’t worry, I have no intention of slacking off and being a lame teacher for the next four-ish weeks. Actually, quite the contrary: I’ve been kind of coasting after the beginning of the year madness, enjoying the fact that I actually sort of adjusted to my job. First thing tomorrow, it’s time to kick it up a gear.

Being home was sort of surreal in that “it feels like I never left” sort of way, and also in a “where the heck is dad?” sort of way. His current deployment has been significantly less weird for me than my family, I’m sure, since I don’t really see the difference between him being at home and not being at home – I’m not there, either. With regard to the former surrealness, it seems to me to be a particularly good thing. It means I haven’t missed too much and it means my niche in the family, while altered, has not been diminished (I’m sure both my parents will laugh at me for even thinking that was a possibility, but cut me some slack. One assumes when she vacates her spot in the nest that the rest of the nest’s inhabitants will spread out a little).

It was also wonderful to see some of my nearest and dearest partners in lunacy from my long-gone college days. Sadly, I spent the last half of their visit and the day following struck down by a weird illness, the after effects of which I’m still feeling, but in their typical fashion they had me laughing through most of it. My sense of humor’s full depth of tastelessness wasn’t clear to me until I moved in with the sisters, and it was quite the relief to be able to make a few ridiculous comments with these people.

Departure wasn’t too painful this time. This is the third time I’ve left BWI for San Antonio. When Mark dropped me off in June, I almost lost it. When Daddy dropped me off in August, I did loose it. This time when Mama and the babies dropped me off, I kept it together by telling myself “Four weeks, four weeks, four weeks…”, which is a very bearable time after I just went three months. Still, I miss said babies, Mama, Daddy, friends, and assorted other “home” persons plenty.

Tomorrow I’ll teach like it’s my job (sorry, that was really lame), and I will continue to do so until May. In between, I’ll keep missing my friends and family, enjoying them when I can see them. And really, that’s how it oughta be, right?

Fever

I'm in denial about leaving home again, so here I am computing rather than packing. Go me. I will blame this on my illness of the last couple days. I'm convalescing, alright?

Folks, I don't know what your feelings on liturgical music are, if you even have feelings on liturgical music, but no matter what "school" you belong to, this is just ridiculous. This sounds like its supposed to be a joke.

I hear that and I think of this(do yourself a favor and skip to the 1:55 mark):



...which is a decent tribute to an SNL skit I couldn't find video of, so here's another musically comical SNL skit.

Ladies and Gents, My Brother

...who is the only person I can even imagine would say this (via e-mail, emphasis mine):

Please think of songs that go with the Victorian Era, preferably somewhere in the heavy metal ballpark. Speaking of which, I’ll be reading Beowulf in my Lit. class next weekJ.I’ll need to find a barbarian costume somewhere for the occasion.

-Second Born.

Wow. I'm outdone.

Kinda Pumped (plus a tangent)

...to be going HOME to see these people:





...and assorted other family persons of whom I sadly don't seem to have pictures. I would be bummed, except I'll see them in roughly 16 hours and 58 minutes and can take lots of pictures of them.

I'm also, like, way totally uber excited to eat my Mama's cooking. Like... man. Our vice principal is from about 50 miles east of Lake Charles, and I mentioned to her today I like hearing her talk because she sounds kind of like my Mama. She went off an an evil tangent about rice dressing and sea food gumbo, which made me get choked up about missing said Mama. She then promised to make these things for me, which I said I would gladly accept. I didn't mention there was no way her rice dressing and gumbo were as good as my Mama's. No need to point out the obvious.

Related tangent: At our Veterans' Day assembly, out vets wore their dress uniforms, including our coach who was in the Air Force for 20+ years. First of all, I love blues. They just make me happy. I grew up around flight suits and then blues. Second, I kinda miss my Daddy. I got all chocked up, which got worse when one of my girls noticed my eyes watering and yelled out, "Are you CRYING, Miss C.?!" drawing the attention of the entire 7th grade to my little reverie. I forgive her, though, because that resulted in half of the 7th grade coming down on me in one giant hug.

By the way, it's 10:30, I leave the convent at 5:30, and I haven't started packing yet. I'm just that confident in my ability to scramble like a rat... lemer... seagull? Something quick and not embarrassing.

Seriously, I was never this oblivious

I don't understand this. Pardon my hubris, but I'm a decently intelligent person (enough so that I just intentionally misused the word "hubris" for the sake of humorous over-statement) and I've got a respectable track record for understanding things and people. Yet this remains out of the realm of my comprehension.

Lots of the doors around here are locked, this being a school and all, and students are obliged to wait for a teacher with a key to key to get into those doors. I am one such teacher, so I daily find myself shoving between a middle schooler and a door and unlocking said door. Here's what I don't get:

A) That I am consistently required to shove between the child and the door. Not only do they not seem to realize the physical impossibility of two objects simultaneously occupying a given space, but my saying "Excuse me" or "Hey, back up" does not recall this fact to their minds.

B) That as soon as the door peeks open, while my hand is still on the key and the key is still in the door, effectively tethering me to the door, 9 out of 10 children will take over and pull the door open, yanking my arm almost out of its socket, and then attempt to walk through my arm to get inside. Again, they don't seem to be aware of the solid material status of our respective corporal natures. That, or they want to play red rover against my humerus and radius/ulna.

Seriously, kids?

I WISH I were this clever

This is just brilliant. I wish I'd discovered it in before Halloween.

Dear Readers, I give you Scary Mary.

Borderless

...You have taken off your old self with its practices and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge in the image of its Creator. Here there is no Gentile or Jew, circumcised or uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave or free, but Christ is all, and is in all.

-Colossians 3:9-11

First, thanks to the Wanderer for making me think. This is about the third time she's sent me into a good pondering session since I started reading her blog, which wasn't long ago. Second, I'd like to note that the results of my pondering are in no way a critique of her statement. It was of such brevity that I couldn't even grasp at what depth she intended when she wrote it. It was long and good enough to get me thinking.

When the tsunami hit southeast Asia in 2004, Americans reacted with their emotions and their pocket books. By the disaster's second anniversary, the U.S. federal government had given $841 million in aid, and U.S. private donors had given $1.8 BILLION, cash and in-kind. That's a LOT of money. By comparison, the American Red Cross has a budget of about $4.1 billion -- also a lot of money. Consider, Dear Reader, these statistics on U.S. poverty: The U.S. poverty rate in 2005 was 12.6%. Out of 300 million, that would be 36 million, mostly children. An estimated 3.5 million people in the U.S. are homeless, including about 14,000 in the nation's capitol.

Admittedly, this pales in comparison to the problems facing the other two-thirds of the world, including the one-third who live on less than $2 a day, but c'mon, this is the richest country in the world and we can't do something about all our issues? I'm not out to be downer here, but I would suggest that the problem is not that we American's don't care enough about non-Americans. The problem is that a lot of us don't give a blessed flip about anybody, American, Sudanese, Venezuelan, or otherwise. Moreover, I see a willful ignorance of our own poor and forgotten. In my feeble observation, people react strongly to tragedy abroad because it's easy to sign a check and heave a sigh without actually getting involved. We ignore the woman on the bench who converses with herself because to acknowledge her existence so very close to us is the first step to admitting we are obligated to do something about her situation, and we are either unwilling or totally lost as to how to do that (and is there a difference?).

Please note, Dear Reader, I pass no judgment here. I look at material poverty around me and I'm at a loss as to how to do a thing about it. Spiritual poverty is more prevalent, and more destructive still, and I freeze at the sight of it.

But this is where God comes in. He doesn't simply fill our hearts with warm fuzzies, He expands them and leaves them just empty enough that we are driven out of ourselves and into the world to do something about it. We realize, slowly and sometimes painfully, that it's not about feeling good or being nice or being liked or an of the adjectives connected to "success". We realize that we are not disconnected from the starving child in Africa, or the woman enslaved. Our bond with the guy who doesn't appear to have worked or showered for a while becomes apparent. People of faith must admit God wasn't being poetic about that "love your neighbor" bit, even if your neighbor is a jerk.

And my point, at the end of all this drivel, is that the problem goes much deeper than national borders. The problem goes to our own instinct to self preservation, which becomes the drive for comfort, which puts up blinders to the plight of "the least of these". God calls every last one of us to our particular mission, be it foreign or domestic. The irony of Augustine's well-put truth that "Our hearts are restless until the rest in thee" is that once we really rest in Him, God kicks us right back out to work our tails off, wherever we are, to build up His kingdom.