2 down, 178 to go

Usually the first day is exciting, patient, frantic, quiet and gone in a blink. It was all of those things, in a way, but it was also completely easy. Having the same students makes a world of difference. Its like picking up where I left off some odd weeks ago. I had a spastic moment today when the challenge of juggling the two math curriculum became very apparent. My new partner seems completely haggard. I haven't quite figured out if this is his general appearance or if he really is. I don't want to step in too much, but I had to today when some students took advantage of him, lied to me, and then refused to do what I had asked. I made it abundantly clear that this sort of thing would not fly. I guess you could consider me strict. I demand a lot. I try to maintain a respectful firmness. I'm far from the best and far from perfect. I do a lot of good stuff, but I tend to loose it a lot too. Last year there was that one student. I didn't write much during the year because he pretty much took up all my time. This year I aim to set limits, both for myself, with my colleagues, and within the classroom. Some things I just need to let go of. I don't always let go because I get emotional and I am passionate. This year is an effort toward that goal.

I wasn't sure before, but I am sort of excited for our move. I am looking forward to using a washer and dryer whenever I want and not having to worry about having enough quarters. I am looking forward to having a patio with great big windows that let in lots of light. It will be an interesting change. I like routine. I ran once this week and already I can feel that itch. Today's frustrations are very much related to the no exercise. I like being back on a better diet, although at the moment I have a twelve minute lunch. We have a new (old) system at school where the children punch a number into a machine that has probably been around since the 60s or 70s and we are the very last group to go through the cafeteria. It took 25 minutes to get all my students through the cafeteria line. What a nightmare! I may as well bring my lunch to the cafeteria and eat with the students. There's no time to do anything else. By the time I heated and inhaled my food, and then went to the bathroom, it was time to go get my students from recess. I think next week I will just bring portable food, like yogurt, nuts and fruit and eat it while I wait with the students. You would think we would get some fancy new machine that takes only a few seconds. This takes about one minute per student. This should be interesting.

Books, books, books

The end of my summer also means an end to summer reading. Some books I enjoyed this summer:

1. The Book Thief, by Markus Zusak
2. Japanland: A Year in Search of Wa, by Karin Muller
3. The Teahouse Fire, by Ellis Avery
4. Skinny Dip, by Carl Hiaasen
5. a bunch of trashy novels that weren't worth remembering, but fun to read!

Books on my list to read:

1. Isla de los delfines azules, by Scott O'Dell (school title)
2. Cajas de carton (The Circuit) by Francisco Jimenez (school title)
3. Mudbound, by Hillary Jordan
4. What Happened to Anna K., by Irina Reyn
5. Delirium, by Laura Restrepo
6. Petite Anglaise, by Catherine Sanderson

Any reviews offered are always appreciated.

Red 'uns and wee red 'uns

Finally. Tomaters turning red. I was lamenting to mom that they were still green and there wasn't enough heat to get them to turn. I climbed out of the car to check the plants upon arrival and sure enough they were red. So exciting! They still have a ways to go, but so promising. Might actually not have to buy tomatoes at the farmer's market next week.

GUeewww

I got hungry on the way home today, really hungry, and I had an extra GU in my car, so I thought maybe that would tie me until dinner time. Gross, gross, gross. Let's be clear here, when you run long distances and sweat to all hell, GU tastes scrumptious, or maybe passable because you've sweat your body weight in water. It does NOT, I repeat NOT, make a good snack. It has about 55mg of sodium and man can you taste it. Bleh! The breathe it left me with was also less than ideal.

In other news, I try to remain optimistic about this new year - okay, so maybe I haven't been giving it my all - but at least I try to remain optimistic about M. He's new to teaching, new to life away from home, new to the working world. Sweet! Today I decided my efforts would be most rewarded if I just told him what we were doing because up to this point, he seemed to lack focus. So I would yammer away, "This is what I do...blah, blah, what to you think? Oh good, this is how I do it, blah, blah, blah." I suppose it was sort of non-collaborative of me. JE says I'm probably going to be doing a lot of hand-holding. Maybe it'll get better.

I also had to give up quite a bit of my stuff with the move. I had thought I would have my tables, bookshelves, computers, desks, etc. and was pretty much told I would have to leave all that. There is some word that I might get new computers. I figure if I don't within the first two weeks, I'll go in and take mine back. The bookshelves were annoying especially since the other teacher that moved in sort of moved her stuff onto them and then feigned ignorance that I had told her I would be moving them. New to our school and already pissing people off. Didn't thank the custodians for finding her some stuff and we all know that you treat them like gold because when you need it, they turn a blind eye and find you the good stuff. (No I don't mean that kind of stuff.) New desks showed up and I graciously passed them onto M saying that I would take the old ones. That proved to be a pretty self-serving move on my part, although I didn't know it at the moment. The desks that arrived are cumbersome single chair-desk units that belong in a high school. I pretty much would have flipped if they showed up in my classroom as they are not at all conducive to my teaching style. I like cooperative groups, I keep students moving around and change up groups quite a lot and I need movable chairs for the purpose of my student meetings. Totally ridiculous stuff that is not remotely important, but actually sort of screws with routine. And while I like change, I also like routine. You mess up my routine too much and I am not very effective. Its sort of like when I don't make time to exercise and several days pass. I become cranky and out of sorts. Being without what I am used to as a teacher also makes me cranky and out of sorts. So, I am not doing a very good job of going with the flow, but I only recently resolved this, so it will have to get better. For everyone's sake.

Movin' on up

As if I need to add one more thing to the craziness that usually comes with the beginning of the year, it looks like we are moving. I was very apprehensive at this prospect, because eventually the homeowner will move into the unit in order to remodel the existing main house. Everything is brand new, which is sort of exciting and a little scary. I tend to be pretty low on the wear, but JE tends to be a little rougher. We are moving back to the neighborhood I previously lived in and back to the place where we met. Ohhhhh, isn't that sweet.

Things I will not miss: the bums that walk by our windows, the mold that grows in giant patches after the rain because the outside corner of the building is exposed, the ugly patches from water leakage from the broken pipes and upstairs unit, water backed up in the sink because the pipes are just old, old, old, and the number one thing I won't miss is being on the ground floor. Dark and not very earthquake safe - squish.

Things I will miss: Being close to downtown, my run route to the lighthouse along the cliffs, and my upstairs golf buddy.

The thing about the things I will miss is that they still kind of go with us. Downtown and lighthouse are just further and I just have to make more of an effort for golf or time with my old neighbor.

Its the BCS all over again...

A tie is a tie. Give 'em both the gold. Screw the stupid tiebreaker rules. They tied. Twice now those girls were robbed. Or at least have a run-off routine. Robbed. Robbed. Robbed. I guess if it were the reverse I wouldn't feel that we were less deserving. Oh well. They still both should have got the gold. Thems the breaks.

And if I were the US pole vaulter, I would fire my coach. What an arsehole! She won a silver freakin' medal and he berates her in front of an entire nation of viewers. How about "Congratulations, we got the silver against a very tough competitor, not bad for someone who's only been vaulting for four years. Beautifully done." Seriously dude, anger management, abuse control, something. In the words of the Donald..."You're fired!" (Please don't sue me for trademark infringement!)

Olympics Recap

After seeing Phelps do that scream and muscle flex of his with that over-protruding chin eight times, JE got up to do several repeats of the pose that had me in stitches. Phelps is a wonder, but man, could someone reset his jaw please. I know, I know, petty, but how else am I supposed to feel good about my own accomplishments. The man made history.

Watching the women's clean and jerk, the gold medalist does 409 pounds to which I say, "Holy, freakin' cow!" And JE says, "You said it." Yup, god bless the woman who can hurl a refrigerator over her head.

Women's beach volleyball. The only thing that allowed me to watch the majority of the Olympics because JE would get so excited. Uh-huh, she wore an itsy-bitsy teeny-weeny red, blue and white bikini.

Women's softball. PAINFUL! The poor Chinese pitcher pitched the equivalence of half the average number of pitches in a normal men's baseball game in ONE INNING against the US women. Apparently, there will be no softball in 2012 due to lack of international competition.

Robbed, robbed, robbed. Apparently, if you fall on your arse doing a more difficult vault, you get a better score than if you practically nailed two consecutive vaults. Alicia Sacramonte was ROBBED! Even Bela Karoly said it, even if he is biased.

Men's floor routines. I so wanted the Brazilian to win. He was just so cute and he was Brazil's shining glory for gymnastics. His routine was awesome until that final pass. The look on his face when he hit the mat was so sad. Stunned.

Run, Forest, run. "Gun, off the blocks, so fast I am running... that I think I will slow... down... now... because I won. Sweet, record time!" -Usian Bolt. Are you kidding me? Next time give us 100% you lazy, lazy man.

Men's 10,000m. 25 laps around a track. They were like a train - legs synchronized like the side rods that propel the train's wheels. And then the Ethiopian takes the lead and takes it home.

Give me MORE!

As Violent Femmes sang it...

Lies, lies, lies, lies, lies, lies.

I received a press release from my school district today that touted the biggest bunch of bull crap. The increase in test scores was pretty much solely attributed to the efforts of our Superintendent and her "efforts" to establish various alternative school programs within our district. In the first place, she did jack and in the second place, she never was a part of establishing these alternative school programs. Fabricated lies. Its amazing. At the very end after it mentioned the trustees, other district leaders, it mentioned the efforts of the front line - the freakin' teachers, hello?!??

What a load of crap! If it wasn't for the teachers, parents (not to mention students) and administration at our school, our school wouldn't exist. She wasn't even Superintendent when it was approved and this year she outright attacked us and we spent the second half of the year fighting for our school. Its part of the reason that I have a combo class next year. So, as far as I am concerned, tout all you want, but I'm going to call a big, fat, bulls@*t!

Lies, lies, lies, lies, lies, lies, lies.

What the!?!

(As an aside, I'm feelin' ya Wintermute, I go online, see who won and go to bed, its just too late, sometimes, even if I don't have to go to work the next day.)

But I missed something, since when did Trampoline become an Olympic event. Isn't that like assisted gymnastics? It strikes me as odd, isn't that sort of like a gimme medal? How big could the world trampoline field be? What's next, Cheerleading? I mean, I don't doubt the athleticism of some of those young women, flying up into the air and what not, but its not something I feel is Olympic worthy. Then again, what do I know?

JE is less than excited about Olympics. He's more of a Winter Olympics guy - ice hockey. I don't discriminate. The only way I get to watch bits and pieces is if the women's beach volleyball is on. (So there you have it Wintermute, that's the reason they have it on so freakin' much.) Granted, normal people do not really like to watch swimming, most of my colleagues have no clue and could care less. Its hard not to want to watch Michael Phelps, he just makes you scream "Go USA!" Makes ya proud to be an American, especially when they kicked some snooty French booty. Okay, really I am not that person. Personally, the French are so misunderstood. Still its really fun to watch him.

Sports just makes people feel good. Some sports are like organized fighting without the death and destruction. Modern day Spartans, if you will. It just makes you feel good to root for someone or something (if you're into horses) and watch them/it win. It allows more civilized, modern day battles. It transcends anything else that may be going on in life. Sure, I don't agree with some of the issues in China and I see the point of the people who feel we shouldn't support the Olympics because of those issues. However, there are plenty of crummy things we've done. And, if you recall, we didn't boycott the Olympics in Berlin during the reign of Hitler. There was certainly knowledge of what was going on in Germany and consideration to boycott. In the end, we went. Jesse Owens had the opportunity to show the world that white, blue-eyed Germans were not superior, as Hitler had hoped. There is so much hurt and suffering in the world that I don't think we should deny opportunities to feel hope, victory and for a period of days something that does not see race or creed, but strength and ability, and that is what the Olympics are about. Perhaps that is what Hitler made it into, but for the most part, people just want to feel good. Even if you see business and classicism and whatever, you can not deny the tears or smiles or sheer joy on those athletes faces.

As Americans, we love a feel good story, especially when it relates to sports. Personally, I love sports movies. To conclude, I decided to list my top five:
1. Radio - Cuba Gooding is astounding in this movie, even if its not about an athlete. Its about hope, courage, and understanding.
2. Remember the Titans - Left side! Strong side! I know its cheesy Disney, but I could watch that movie again and again.
3. Breaking Away - If you have not seen this movie, rent it, but only if you like cycling.
4. Glory Road - Again, cheeseee, but so good.
5 Chariots of Fire - dah, dah, du, dah, du dah, ba dah du dum. (That's my online version of Vangelis.) Run, Forrest, run!

It gets better:

Drip, drop, drip, drop

I woke up this morning to a blaring light in my eyes and Justin saying, "What the heck, there's water everywhere?!?" To which, I rolled over and said, "Turn off the light please and stop all that racket." He proceeded to call the maintenance guy for our building to inform him that we had water dripping from our ceiling in the area by our bathroom, sort of a hallway. By then, I am awake, must get bucket under drip, are clothes in hall closet wet, where is water coming from... It wasn't so much a drip as a steady stream of drips - drip, drip, drip, drip... I was left to listen to the dripping and had since decided that a trip to the gym for a workout and a shower would be in order. I packed up all my stuff for running errands, gym, post-gym and off I traipse. Drop off dry-cleaning, hmm, its dark in here, hmm, woman is writing my dry cleaning ticket by hand, hmm, gym is next door, hmm, the power was out. So much for my gym effort. I learned, however, that if you want a machine that works during a power outage, get an Elyptical Trainer. So that left errands. Get to the grocery store, doesn't open until 9. Its 8:40. This never occurred to me. I am not out and about at such hours doing errands. So I read my book for a bit and then do the grocery shopping. The day proceeded much more smoothly from there. Go to local teacher resource store and buy stuff for class. Go to library to present my work from the summer for a class. Go to cobbler with five pairs of shoes to be repaired.

This was the highlight of my day. My shoes are in pretty bad shape, considering I stand and walk a lot. Some of them are several years old, some of them have just been trashed by the pavement between class and office, class and cafeteria, etc. Two pairs of heels needed new rubber stopper things, a pair of knee-high boots needed to be resoled and buffed, a pair of Simple sandals (my favorite) had an elastic piece that was on its last leg and about to break, a pair of Danskos that also had a similar problem, and one of the pairs of heels that also had elastic band failure would cost me a grand total of $58. I was pretty happy about this because it means my $90 shoe budget is now $58. I had entertained thoughts of getting new shoes, but realized I really needed to do little more than repair some of the old ones that are in good enough shape. Plus, it felt quite wasteful to get new shoes and throw away old ones. The cobbler laughed at my hack job with one of the pairs of shoes - I had actually sewed the leather to the buckle to bypass the elastic band. He thought that was pretty funny and invited me to work there.

Back to the gym, this time the lights were on and everything was functional.

My ceiling has a giant hole in it at the moment and a fan is blowing really stinking air throughout the apartment. I think I will spend the rest of my afternoon at a coffee shop reading and doing some school work. I'm just glad the ceiling decided to collapse from the water leakage while I was on vacation and not for me to find after coming home from work. That would have stunk.

In other news, the garden is very exciting at the moment. I thought the beans would never sprout and yesterday there were little sprouts. We also have the teeny beginnings of a cucumber, also cool. Check out the photos:


Beanies











Cucs

Cha Cha Cha

Because he needs to listen. Boys and their one track minds.

On the third day she ran again

Or at least hobbled. It was like my brain and muscles didn't want to play with each other anymore. The first part was sort of strange, like everything knew what it was supposed to be doing, but wasn't sure in what order. Then, the body sort of caught up with the brain and we chugged along. On the return leg, the the body forgot again.

The insane thing is there's this tiny nagging part of me that says, "C'mon, do it again, that wasn't so tough." And the crazier part is, it wasn't. Well, of course it was, but I had decided, for some reason, that a marathon would be so much harder than anything else I have done - running or otherwise. It is hard, but it wasn't completely beyond my capabilities, as I had been telling myself. Before, only crazy people, like BT and Arvay, ran such ridiculous distances.

When I used to swim, I always enjoyed practice more than anything. Swim meets were fun, but it was a lot of sitting around and I never felt that same sense of accomplishment as I did busting out a set of hundreds on some insane interval. Running is the opposite. The races are when you feel the most accomplished. It may be because, this time, I am only racing myself and my clock. During the swimming days, there was always someone else to try and beat. I started really running (or rather jogging) in college, when I started doing the swim-bike-run thing. Eventually it morphed into my exercise of choice. I still love the way I feel in the water, but swimming laps is tedious. I love being on my bike, but going for long bike rides is sort of uncomfortable and I will never invest in really good bike. So running it is, until it isn't for some injury or another, but I like that it has become my sport of choice. It works.

26.2

Finished. I feel surprisingly good today. Should I feel this good? Does this mean I could've gone faster? See, now here's the problem. I told BT, yeah, maybe someday I'll do this marathon thing. I like half marathons. It doesn't require quite so much discipline or time commitment. Then I just decided it was time. I selected the SF marathon as my goal. Training in the summer is a more reasonable feat for me because the school year gets so hectic. I was lucky enough to have a willing training partner. The problem is now that I have done it, I feel great. Its a pretty respectable accomplishment. Now, I keep wondering, could I have gone faster? I can move respectably today and have no pain that is telling me I performed past my fitness level. Its probably like giving birth, otherwise people wouldn't do either more than once. Does it mean I'll do another? Well, that has yet to be determined.

BT's constant support and encouragement (and, no doubt, running more slowly for me) were great. Not only during the race, but also during the training runs. She was always impressed with us, even when I felt less than impressed with me.

The nagging neck and shoulder pain from previous chronic pain issues that stayed from mile 9 on were not so wonderful. They remain part of the reason for my thinking, could I go faster? (Do I really want to given how great I feel today?!?) I moved my classroom last week, which flared the neck and shoulder pain. Not such a great idea. If there is a next time, it will not involve any heavy lifting and will involve some pre-race massage sessions.

My parents showed up. How cool is that?!? In typical E family fashion, they met us at the end of the bridge, mile 8, then in the park, mile 13, then on the return through the park, mile 17 and finally at the finish. Now that is support!

My feet hurt quite a bit. Is that normal? They are in reasonable shape today, but yesterday was rough gimping around.

Thoughts of different people got me through the tough miles. I channeled mom, dad, brother, JE, other friends pushing me with their words and silly sayings.

BT's hubby and JE met us at the finish line. What good boys! We got hugs and kisses for being such champion ladies.

Then we cleaned up and went to a place called Osha in Embarcadero for yummy Thai food. I'm not sure how else I would spend a Sunday - exercise, accomplishment, friends, family, good food, laughter and a fairly good night of sleep. Not bad, not bad indeed.

...

When do we start training again?