I’ll start with the best and work my way to the worst. The best thing I learned today came to me via email. Remember my student Jonathan whose girlfriend up and left to Tijuana? Well he hasn’t been to class all week and I’ve been worried. But today, I opened up my email to find a message from him. It said the following: “Miss. This because I find Pricilla. You know how much I love her. So I not come back. Goodbye. Will miss you.” So the romance continues between my two students and I am so happy for him. However, the teacher/mother in me also hopes he goes back to school in Tijuana at least. I assume the novelity of their reunion will wear off after a while and the imminency of a needed education will begin to follow him. Pricilla’s family values education too, so I believe she will pressure Jonathan to go to school. So in the end, I believe this is good news. This news also helped soften the blow of the next news.
See, obviously given the fact that my student emailed me personally to let me know he will not be returning to school because he found his girlfriend in Tijuana, I have developed a good rapport with my students this year. Last year, I had that same type of rapport with my fifth period class but apparently not with my second period class. See this year, one of my students received a Valentine Gram from a previous student I had last year in my second period class. I teased my student and then told him I had his girlfriend last year and to ask her about me. I asked him today what she said. He said that she told him I was a good teacher but I was moody and I once ripped her project in half. Yikes! I don’t remember doing that? I only rip up tests if a student is caught cheating. I’m hoping that given he is learning English that something got lost in the translation, and it was a test that I ripped up because she was probably talking during the test. But to find out a student viewed me as “moody?” That is hard! I did have a rough first period last year so I wonder if my emotional state second period varied depending on what happened with my first period class. I sure hope so! I’m going to start paying closer attention to how I behave after a tough class this year and see if I notice a correlation. This year is more laid back because I have a break almost after each class—First period, teach; second period, break; third and fourth period block class, teach; lunch; fifth period, teach; sixth period, teach. But in case next year, I get a similar schedule as last year, I defintely want to prevent that from happening again. I’m not a moody person so it came as quite a shock.
But who knows, I may not have a class to teach next year. The final news I learned today is that district will have to lay off 88 staff members , 25 of which will be from the two high schools. So—if I do keep my job, it will by the hair of my chiny chin chin. I keep trying to remind myself that change, scary or not, brings color to life. I just hope the color isn’t black. So keep me in your thoughts or prayers please!
Kanan will be two here in couple of weeks. I’ve got the invitations set for a birthday party on March 7th and can’t wait to see him blow out his two candles. And normally I brag about all the cool things Kanan can do on these posts but I just can’t wait two more weeks to share.
Today was such a wonderful day! Aside from Kanan waking me up at 530 this morning, it really was grand. And thankfully I own a delicious blend of espresso I bought at Sprouts and my favorite creamer in the world–Italian Sweet Creme, so I was able to make it through the 530 A.M wake up. Kanan and I started our morning off cuddling in bed for about a half hour and then cuddled on the couch and watched Martha Speaks and Clifford on PBS while I woke up with my morning cup of java. We then had breakfast, went for a walk, and played at the park. Kanan climbed up the rope ladder about three times in a row all by himself. He is so cute when he says “up, up, up” every time he moves his feet up each rung.
Afterward we went to my sister’s house and Kanan ran around with his cousin Harley for about an hour before passing out for his afternoon nap. My sister, Grandma, Dad, and Linda chit-chatted a bit. Then I napped too to catch up after waking up so early. After Kanan woke up, my dad, grandma, and Linda left for downtown Carlsbad to snoop around. Kanan was great. He snacked on cookies from Starbucks, played with his toys in his stroller as we walked the streets, pointed and smiled at cool decorations at a local import shop, and ate well at Coyote Bar and Grill where we ate dinner. The salsa there was delicious and Kanan liked the salsa so much, he ate all the salsa I poured on his plate and then when he finished, grabbed the salsa dish, pulled the straw out of his water and started slurping it up! No joke and I promise you no one at the table initiated 
that! My salsa loving son came up with that brilliant idea all by himself! He then saw a little boy in the next booth and decided to talk with him in his little baby talk. I’m not sure all what he said, but I did hear “truck” and “shoe” and Kanan did kick out his foot and point to his shoe as he told the little boy all about it.
This is getting way too close in similarity to the time in my life when I was 21 and had my purse stolen by a prostitute in a dirty dive bar in Escondido. The woman memorized all the information on my drivers licence, used my canceled credit cards as other forms of identification and then after she was arrested for returning stolen merchandise at a mall nearby two months after she stole my purse, presented my drivers licence to the police officers. So she was arrested under my name until three days into her detention an intelligent police officer looked at this 300 pound woman (150 pounds of which was in her rear-end alone) and looked at the buck twenty younger woman on the ID and thought it didn’t add up. He looked up my name and found my police report I made about my purse being stolen. I had to go down and identify the woman. She was charged with stealing merchandise and impersonating me, but unfortunately didn’t get charged with stealing my purse because I couldn’t verify with 100 percent certainty that she was the same woman who stole my purse. I told them I could if I could see her rear-end in a line up instead of just looking at her mugshot. They declined. I told them 75% based on her face. Guess that wasn’t enough.
Happy New Year everyone! I know the news in the world makes 2009 seem pretty glum, but I’ve got a good feeling about this one! I really do. I pray that everyone of you are blessed this year despite any subconcious fears about our jobs or houses or debt. I know that may be easier said than done, but there is something to thinking positive and so I’m sticking with it, and you should too. :) And I am further stoked to have looked back at my New Years Resolutions from last year and find that I succeeded in reaching half of them! That is a first! So, Since I’m on the upswing here, here is the list for 2009. So now that you know them, you all better call me on it when I am not following through. I need reinforcement! :)
Hey, It's Theresa Marie 