I've been Nerd Tested, and I passed.

Is that like getting positive medical test results?



I'm glad to have found that link on Bob S-K's blog. And Nicolas, you'd better bring that lightsaber to school and the mask, too.

A poem from my notebook

I wrote this today for my dog, Beau.

The cobbler's children

When you imagine the adage about the cobbler's children going barefoot, it's not hard to extend the analogy to the teacher's child failing middle school. In the last trimester, I've watched my son's grades plummet like autumn leaves, helpless to stop their inevitable descent. It's as if I were waiting for my addict friend to hit rock bottom before he'd allow my intervention.

His mother and I are at wits end, nearly bald from the figurative hair-pulling. Dealing with a battle over medication for ADHD and unfeeling teachers that insist of giving grades like 20% from which almost no one can recover does not help in any way. My greatest fear is that he would have to repeat 8th grade. If I could in anyway afford it, I'd school him myself, but I cannot go without income for two or more years helping him to learn self discipline and to appreciate his own education.

After the confrontation and discussion this morning, I'd like to think that there will be improvement this week. I pray that will be the case.

The truth about latte

The blend of lies and non-fiction in my life has varied like a sweetened latte.

At once it’s all good, perfectly balanced, delicious. Then the milk has to go because it wreaks havoc on the intestines, leaving you feeling uneasy, nauseous to the verge of vomiting forth facts you can't suborn or violently passing them to be sanitized in the septic treatment of the world at large.

Next goes the sugar. First you try pseudo-sugars that leave people hearing what they think they want, but in the end are empty and unsatisfying. Ultimately, all the sweetness takes a hiatus, foregone for the apparent blunt honesty left by the strong taste of the coffee.

The no-foam soy is the deal-maker. At first it’s just a little different, but it lets the espresso pound through. The coffee overwhelms the senses while the soy milk attempts to soothe the palate. It’s the easy flow of the falsehood, chaser to the hard truth, that makes it so easy to swallow. It’s a latte, but it’s not; the beauty is the higher price it exacts.

Late night date night movies...alone

Before midnight I wait
for him to call me
though I know when he does,
it will be late,
and we'll both be very tired.
He's playing cards with buds
from work.
He's having a few drinks,
gambling his money away
in a private game for friends.
The miles apart
create a rift beyond geography.
Anxious separation
leaves me cold, sleepless, tired.
In almost 5 years,
we've been together for less than 1.
Common time
is made of coincidental simulcasts,
a boon of digital cable subscriptions.
Internet IM and "Friends-n-Family" minutes
keep us together
when life holds us apart.
Frankly, it sucks.
Come home, my man.

Still life on crumpled cloth (Store-bought kitch)

Ebony pencil on 65# Canson white paper

Guns in school

A student in Ohio attacks his school. Another in Pennsylvania stockpiles weapons, apparently under the auspices of parent-supervised homeschooling. Then in Oregon a TEACHER wants to be allowed to carry a gun to school--under permit and allegedly to protect herself from an ex-husband.

I believe in the 2nd Amendment though I do not own a gun. An American has the right to bear arms within the context of the law. I don't believe it takes an automatic weapon to hunt a deer. And one can adequately defend his home with a handgun. However, schools whether public or private are no place for guns. In my role as a teacher, I work hard to make my classroom a safe place for my students, but I don't believe having a gun would ever create the sense of safety that students need.

Morning Meds in Macro

taken with Kodak EasyShare CX7430, retouched in Photoshop Elements 2