Last week, Spanish class was awesome, awesome, awesome, awesome, not so hot. My students made me want to weep with their success on more than one occasion. They really made some great advancements. Then came Friday and what I thought was going to be a super easy matching vocab test, but they didn’t impress me so much. “Oh man, we… Read More
Afraid You’re Going to Mess up around People?
First day of school today, guys, and how could I not write about it? My new room is perfection, if I say so myself. Verb folders are prepared and waiting for unsuspecting freshmen. There’s a fake apple that looks for real sitting on my desk. Not sure what to wear, but I imagine the bed will be covered with a… Read More
The Importance of Being Liked
Will you pause for a minute and enjoy this beautiful picture of my mom’s front room? My daughter snapped this picture when we went for a visit a few weeks ago. She says her grandma’s house is magazine worthy. Doesn’t it make you want to find a book and a cup of coffee, so you can read in that big… Read More
Easter, Valentines, And A Good Man
I was stretched out next to him on the couch one evening, and something made me think of old English literature. Quote the Canterbury Tales Prologue for me, I said. Naaaaah, he said. Pleeeeease. Quote it for me. Batting eyelashes. And so he began to quote –stage voice locked on and right hand raised quite Shakesperianish. Whan that Aprill, with… Read More
On Being Hard To Offend
I could see the panic in her eyes the second after she pushed the cart. She could tell it was going to crash into my car, so in one of those slow-mo’s she attempted to catch it, without success. At the same time I was doing hand signals to try to get her to relax. Because really? If she were… Read More
This Kind of Strength for You Today
So I’m making dinner and I say, Four more minutes, guys. But you said nine minutes five minutes ago, my husband said. Silence from the kitchen. Um, oh, sorry, I said. Laughter from the living room. Give me a spelling bee any day over any kind of math problem. Which makes it ironic that I love addition when it comes… Read More
The Room to Fail
Everyone says it –the first year of teaching is a grunt. (Grunt: The Montana word for straight-up hiking trails.) I made it through that first year when I knew nothing. Maybe less than nothing, if that’s possible. So I learned on the backs of everyone around me. Kudos to the secretaries who answered exactly 746,482 questions. A huge thanks to… Read More
So You’ve Fallen Short
It’s hard to decide what to love him for the most –the fact that he planned this little getaway for us, to dangle in front of me through the grief and stress of this last season of life –or that he got up first and made coffee. He is a good man. I lay on the king-size, pillow-top mattress, under… Read More
Feel Like Hurtin’ Somebody?
At 11:30 the teenagers filled the hotel room next to mine, and it seemed only a thin shower curtain hung between me and their raucous chatter and laughter. I felt like a crotchety old lady who wanted to go bang on their door with my cane. You young people keep it down! But I took the coward’s way and called… Read More
Not So Good with People?
There are a variety of reactions students give when they see their grades on a test. They slump or cringe or smile or do a little dance. I go through most of those emotions after being around people. Maybe it’s the teacher in me, but when I come home, after being in a social setting, I give myself a grade… Read More