Narcissism

Indulge me. I've been thinking about blogging, wanting to post, thinking about posting, reading other people's blogs, but for a while now I just haven't made the time to write anything on here of any substance whatsoever. (And don't expect much this time.) I did want to say a little about what I've been up to the past two months with school, so you know that my silence has been for good reason. I am particularly ashamed that I just completely forgot about "Fine Art Fridays" for about 3 weeks, even though I think about what I want to post for days leading up to it. Maybe I can restart that this week.

First, a hindrance: This year, I can no longer access Blogger or Bloglines from school or post comments. So, that's cut down on my computer time. But it (hopefully) means I'm getting more things done that are school-related in the afternoons. However, some days I'm still staying until about 5:30 or 6 p.m. just to get things done, because I have additional responsibilities that have sometimes kept me much later than that.

Second, the highlights: This year, I'm part of a "Ninth Grade Academy" that meets during our lunch planning period (taking away some "productive" time), but getting to meet with 6-8 other teachers almost every day has been a great experience-- I don't feel so alone as I did my first year, when no one had time to discuss strategies or students or anything else. Also, seeing even small successes of interventions we've had with students who are struggling with the transition from middle school to high school has been a great motivator. Working with our new "Graduation Coach" has also been a plus-- she puts in triple effort with students in all grades who are struggling due to academic, behavioral, personal, or emotional issues. I've appreciated seeing the caring individuals that make up the sometimes monstrous industrial machine-like organization of the public school system.

Another positive note has been working with our Academic Team, which pretty much runs itself. Those are some bright kids, I tell ya. Last Wednesday, Gaines and I traveled downtown to the WSB studios to watch the kids pull out a close match against their opponent in the local High Q competition, a televised academic bowl that matches teams from all over the state. We both relived memories from times we participated in a similar competition at then Troy State University. (Ask Gaines' whose team won when my alma mater and his went head-to-head his senior year of high school...Mwahahaha!) It was a fun, though late evening.

Also, I am one of the 9th grade class sponsors, and a tradition at our school is for each class to decorate the halls thematically to be judged the Friday of Homecoming Week. (If I'm brave, I might share a photo Gaines took of me when I dressed up for "Tacky Day" -- I was hideous, but he had to capture the moment on our new digital.) Hall decorating makes for quite a few long days, and one LATE Thursday night. This year, though, we finished by 9:30 p.m. and the "Jungle Book" theme turned out to be one of the best freshman halls the school had ever seen (I only supervised, I swear!). However, I think I am still catching up from that one week of lost grading time. I will say, as well, that it might have been a bad idea to play "The Bear Necessities" and "I Wanna Be Like You" on repeat the morning of the judging. I've had those songs in my head ever since!

Finally, my World Literature class has just finished up a Mythology unit, and I was so inspired from reading "Cupid and Psyche" that I picked up Lewis' masterpiece 'Til We Have Faces: A Myth Retold for a second read. I finished tonight, and I'm still reeling from the beauty of the story. Perhaps I'll post more on that later. If you haven't yet read it, you should!

That's all for now. We're off to watch the latest installment of LOST. I can't wait!