Fifth hour is my plan hour so I dutifully showed up though as it is the last day of the year and I am not planning much. Graded notebooks and wondering where one is that has not yet appeared. Hopefully it will come in before next Monday or I will have to give a "0" and there goes a decent grade to the graveyard of I would or should have.
Windbreak House here I come. Linda Hasselstrom has accepted me and June 13-16th I will be doing extreme writing. Table tales will really get down to brass tacks while I am there. I am excited to say the least. Quiet, books, writing and excellent mentorship what a blessing in my life!
Speaking of blessings, I had one today. My tire light came on as I was driving to to work about 6:30 AM, and the last time it did that my tire was flat. FLAT!!!. Pulled to the verge to check the tires, nothing seemed low. A quick phone call to pal said it might just be low pressure so I drove on up the road. At school another check no flat so must be low pressure. Thus I added a quick stop at the tire shop here if it is still in business to fill up on gas and get the tires checked. So if he is not open, i may need faith to get to Hutch. For some reason the WW ll song "Coming In On A Wing And A Prayer" is on my mental horizon.
More later today or tomorrow. Have to actually work in this hour.
Wednesday, April 30, 2014
Monday, April 28, 2014
last and storms
Last day of regular classes and hopefully an uneventful one after Friday's excitement which was handled so well by the staff and the students who came. Big back pats to you all.
Tomorrow is block schedule and all my classes meet on that day, So that is my last day with students and I can begin ordering my room for the summer. Teachers are here until the ninth of May, but not here in our building.We have to remove our selves to other buildings due to construction. Therefore I will get done what has to be done or rather can be done and go on.
Going on is so much of what life is. One gets busy, gets done what one can, and moves on. With adulthood comes the acceptance that sometimes one can not be the super person who wins out against all odds. Sometimes the odds defeat us and what then?
What then indeed? If one is without faith how does one survive? I know personally when the odds get high or the road block to my goal is too big to win over, i just leave it to him.Worry is a human thing and I worry but only about the things I can handle. If it is too big for me to wrestle to the ground and win, then I give it to Him. I may not like his answer but when all is said and done He is right.
Nature makes my faith grow. Each spring the new green reminds me that life goes on and will even when I can no longer be part of it. My marriage to the farmer taught me that. No farmer can truly be an atheist because they are partners with nature in all her blessings and her bad moods. I did not realize this fully until my marriage and even when the marriage ended, I remain grateful for this lesson.
Last night nature took at least 18 lives in two states south of us during a stormy rampage of twisters. Living in tornado alley , such storms are too frequent for comfort but they do not all come down and destroy. Perhaps because of this I do not fear them as I should.I can not control them but I can live with them.
Life can be full of twisters--love , marriage, birth. death.these are the major twisters of our lives and we all face them.Controlling them is another matter-- especially death.We just live with them, gather ourselves together and get on with it. It is not easy and without faith to bolster our strength how difficult it must be to do this task of living.
Tomorrow is block schedule and all my classes meet on that day, So that is my last day with students and I can begin ordering my room for the summer. Teachers are here until the ninth of May, but not here in our building.We have to remove our selves to other buildings due to construction. Therefore I will get done what has to be done or rather can be done and go on.
Going on is so much of what life is. One gets busy, gets done what one can, and moves on. With adulthood comes the acceptance that sometimes one can not be the super person who wins out against all odds. Sometimes the odds defeat us and what then?
What then indeed? If one is without faith how does one survive? I know personally when the odds get high or the road block to my goal is too big to win over, i just leave it to him.Worry is a human thing and I worry but only about the things I can handle. If it is too big for me to wrestle to the ground and win, then I give it to Him. I may not like his answer but when all is said and done He is right.
Nature makes my faith grow. Each spring the new green reminds me that life goes on and will even when I can no longer be part of it. My marriage to the farmer taught me that. No farmer can truly be an atheist because they are partners with nature in all her blessings and her bad moods. I did not realize this fully until my marriage and even when the marriage ended, I remain grateful for this lesson.
Last night nature took at least 18 lives in two states south of us during a stormy rampage of twisters. Living in tornado alley , such storms are too frequent for comfort but they do not all come down and destroy. Perhaps because of this I do not fear them as I should.I can not control them but I can live with them.
Life can be full of twisters--love , marriage, birth. death.these are the major twisters of our lives and we all face them.Controlling them is another matter-- especially death.We just live with them, gather ourselves together and get on with it. It is not easy and without faith to bolster our strength how difficult it must be to do this task of living.
Friday, April 25, 2014
re post as my thoughts nce agin go there
A MEDITATION ON AS
A is such a little word---just two letters. Yet it is such a powerful word it is often the fulcrum of a thought, which changes some seemingly simple phrase in to powerful thought that allows us to ponder consequences and visualize the world around us.
Comparisons of two things often use the word as. For example we say, “Tom is as tall as….” And Tom’s height is immediately something we can visualize. It can be ironic comparisons such as “Ellen is as funny as a cell block at Folsom prison,” or it can add meaning to a sentence when used as in the phrase “ It will be done as he desires.” Just two little letters, one little word but such power.
Lately the word as in one particular statement has been dominating my thoughts. Are you ready for it? Here it is “Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.” Wow ,does the word as ever pack a punch in that line.
As we forgive sure lays the action right on us. Forgive us as we forgive. Oops, does that mean we will be forgiven in the same manner as we forgive someone who has hurt us. That is a scary thought because forgiving is not something most of us find easy to do.
Sure we can let the “little things” go easily. Somebody slams us verbally and we can shrug it off but have we really forgiven it or just ignored it. We can forget and forgive those who see us do something stupid and laugh because we know they too will do something not quite smart someday. These little forgivings are painless and leave no scars.
Forgiving the big things that is the tough stuff of the phrase “ as we forgive” the betrayal by a friend or spouse lingers long after the actual act. They scar our souls and our hearts. Such big things seem to be unforgivable and revenge is so tempting. Yet if we want true forgiveness for our own mistakes big or small, forgiving those betrayals is almost a commandment because of the little two-letter word as.
Think about it. If that as means our forgiveness is to be given in the same manner we forgive others, most of us have to begin to practice real forgiveness and most of us will in truth have to really work at it. As is the pivot upon which the concept of forgiveness takes on a ne meaning that puts a task out there for us to fulfill.
So I find myself looking within to find how I practice forgiveness. Do I allow little bits of lingering bitterness weaken my forgiveness? Do I limit my own forgiveness because I cannot truly forgive?
As one little word, two little letters but oh such power.
Mary Devries
A is such a little word---just two letters. Yet it is such a powerful word it is often the fulcrum of a thought, which changes some seemingly simple phrase in to powerful thought that allows us to ponder consequences and visualize the world around us.
Comparisons of two things often use the word as. For example we say, “Tom is as tall as….” And Tom’s height is immediately something we can visualize. It can be ironic comparisons such as “Ellen is as funny as a cell block at Folsom prison,” or it can add meaning to a sentence when used as in the phrase “ It will be done as he desires.” Just two little letters, one little word but such power.
Lately the word as in one particular statement has been dominating my thoughts. Are you ready for it? Here it is “Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.” Wow ,does the word as ever pack a punch in that line.
As we forgive sure lays the action right on us. Forgive us as we forgive. Oops, does that mean we will be forgiven in the same manner as we forgive someone who has hurt us. That is a scary thought because forgiving is not something most of us find easy to do.
Sure we can let the “little things” go easily. Somebody slams us verbally and we can shrug it off but have we really forgiven it or just ignored it. We can forget and forgive those who see us do something stupid and laugh because we know they too will do something not quite smart someday. These little forgivings are painless and leave no scars.
Forgiving the big things that is the tough stuff of the phrase “ as we forgive” the betrayal by a friend or spouse lingers long after the actual act. They scar our souls and our hearts. Such big things seem to be unforgivable and revenge is so tempting. Yet if we want true forgiveness for our own mistakes big or small, forgiving those betrayals is almost a commandment because of the little two-letter word as.
Think about it. If that as means our forgiveness is to be given in the same manner we forgive others, most of us have to begin to practice real forgiveness and most of us will in truth have to really work at it. As is the pivot upon which the concept of forgiveness takes on a ne meaning that puts a task out there for us to fulfill.
So I find myself looking within to find how I practice forgiveness. Do I allow little bits of lingering bitterness weaken my forgiveness? Do I limit my own forgiveness because I cannot truly forgive?
As one little word, two little letters but oh such power.
Mary Devries
Thursday, April 24, 2014
Habits
Having just read about a night walk and badgers in FEELS LIKE FAR by Linda Hasselstrom, I an struck by two things. After twenty five years of marriage to a farmer, my natural owl nature has morphed into a lark and I now rise early. Second she found and I suppose she still does finds peace in the quiet of nature during her night walks. In this I am like her.
Dawn is my best time. Well to be truthful I often rise before dawn. IN those still quiet hours I can read , write , knit and think. Somehow my day falls into place during these silent hours alone except for the dogs who usually have returned to their beds. As I sip coffee I can contemplate the tasks to be done, the hopes and goals of my life and then I dress and enter the real world. Six A.M. me finds on the way to school if I am not already there, and once again in the time before students arrive I can complete planning, grading and all those teacherly tasks.
Nature is with me in the last hoots of the owl, the song and chatters of the sparrows and wren, the honks of the geese during their semi annual migrations over my house. I started a scarf knitting the color of the sky each morning.It is still unfinished as it got too cold to go outside to watch the sky while I knit two rows, but the habit of being aware of the sky and the plays of grey, blacks and even steel blue mornings has become a habit. So I sky watch a few minutes daily and let the moment calm and renew my spirit.
One of my friends pairs the sunrise each day to thank God for her recovery from not one but several brain tumors.Nature too has touched her and filled her days with glorious blues , pinks, purples and oranges of sunrise. These sunrises of hers have allowed me to gift special people with a special moment on a memorable day in their life.
During hiatuses from the classroom, I love to be out in a quiet place away from traffic, phones. televisions while I write or read. the constant noises of daily living are left behind and my mind can work through ideas, fashion words into pictures or simply just be present in the moment.
However heat sends me scurrying to a cooler place. heat has never been my friend and now it is even more something I have little toleration for due to medications. By noon most summer days I am in for the day so I can function. Fall and spring are my outdoor seasons. I envy those who can tolerate the heat.
Still I who used to vacuum at midnight before I married, I am not unhappy with my lark habits. They serve me well. I am never late and I still stay up to eleven or later during the months of of along daylight. The shorter winter days often find me snuggled in bed with a good book somewhat earlier, but that I end almost all of my days.
Linda and the badger has inspired this long ramble and made me think of my own habits and what they give me. Such self awareness is not a bad thing.
Dawn is my best time. Well to be truthful I often rise before dawn. IN those still quiet hours I can read , write , knit and think. Somehow my day falls into place during these silent hours alone except for the dogs who usually have returned to their beds. As I sip coffee I can contemplate the tasks to be done, the hopes and goals of my life and then I dress and enter the real world. Six A.M. me finds on the way to school if I am not already there, and once again in the time before students arrive I can complete planning, grading and all those teacherly tasks.
Nature is with me in the last hoots of the owl, the song and chatters of the sparrows and wren, the honks of the geese during their semi annual migrations over my house. I started a scarf knitting the color of the sky each morning.It is still unfinished as it got too cold to go outside to watch the sky while I knit two rows, but the habit of being aware of the sky and the plays of grey, blacks and even steel blue mornings has become a habit. So I sky watch a few minutes daily and let the moment calm and renew my spirit.
One of my friends pairs the sunrise each day to thank God for her recovery from not one but several brain tumors.Nature too has touched her and filled her days with glorious blues , pinks, purples and oranges of sunrise. These sunrises of hers have allowed me to gift special people with a special moment on a memorable day in their life.
During hiatuses from the classroom, I love to be out in a quiet place away from traffic, phones. televisions while I write or read. the constant noises of daily living are left behind and my mind can work through ideas, fashion words into pictures or simply just be present in the moment.
However heat sends me scurrying to a cooler place. heat has never been my friend and now it is even more something I have little toleration for due to medications. By noon most summer days I am in for the day so I can function. Fall and spring are my outdoor seasons. I envy those who can tolerate the heat.
Still I who used to vacuum at midnight before I married, I am not unhappy with my lark habits. They serve me well. I am never late and I still stay up to eleven or later during the months of of along daylight. The shorter winter days often find me snuggled in bed with a good book somewhat earlier, but that I end almost all of my days.
Linda and the badger has inspired this long ramble and made me think of my own habits and what they give me. Such self awareness is not a bad thing.
clutter 2 in one day!!
Clutter- defines the last weeks of school. Cluttered desks full of graded or to be graded papers sit there waiting. Cluttered files of project plans to be assessed stand in the corner. Cluttered ideas on how to survive these last few days while maintaining classroom order fill my thoughts.
But there are other forms of clutter to add to these. Clutter in my house is mounting. I will deal with it when school is out. A clutter of memories dance behind my eyes at night asking when will you write us; much like the clutter of my yarn stash saying when will you knit us?
Yet, all this clutter reminds me that in the twilight of my life, I am still working, still creating , still involved. So clutter while it may not be not be neat,pretty or useful, reminds me I am still alive and kicking.( at the clutter!)
But there are other forms of clutter to add to these. Clutter in my house is mounting. I will deal with it when school is out. A clutter of memories dance behind my eyes at night asking when will you write us; much like the clutter of my yarn stash saying when will you knit us?
Yet, all this clutter reminds me that in the twilight of my life, I am still working, still creating , still involved. So clutter while it may not be not be neat,pretty or useful, reminds me I am still alive and kicking.( at the clutter!)
the jump
Standing on the precipice of a commitment, I have just stepped over and fell into a goal. Spurred by the Story Circle Conference and a backlog of family tales, which that conference resurrected, the writing of a memoir is now a defined and committed goal. In fact the introduction is written and on tale about pigs is in a rough draft. If you were in The session led by Starfire at conference, the relevance of that choice will be apparent; if not, it does not really matter.
The goal of rounding up family tales from my parents, my childhood, and the rest of my life is truly daunting. Can these stories be made readable for those who have not lived them. After all as I am not a mover or a shaker, there probably is not great wisdom or moral to come from the tales. I guess the facets of a life lived as well as possible will have to be entertaining and well crafted to gain readership. Wait a minute, what did I just say? The thought of that reality is a bit scary.
Still I have a working outline, and rough drafts of an intro and one selection roughed in. Baby steps , I can do this if I do it in baby steps. The stories are there, I can write them , but organization editing etc will take concentration. Do I have that? Better yet, can I develop it.
Too late, the jump was made and I am on my way.
The goal of rounding up family tales from my parents, my childhood, and the rest of my life is truly daunting. Can these stories be made readable for those who have not lived them. After all as I am not a mover or a shaker, there probably is not great wisdom or moral to come from the tales. I guess the facets of a life lived as well as possible will have to be entertaining and well crafted to gain readership. Wait a minute, what did I just say? The thought of that reality is a bit scary.
Still I have a working outline, and rough drafts of an intro and one selection roughed in. Baby steps , I can do this if I do it in baby steps. The stories are there, I can write them , but organization editing etc will take concentration. Do I have that? Better yet, can I develop it.
Too late, the jump was made and I am on my way.
Tuesday, April 22, 2014
Panic mode
Last full week for students is in progress. Funny be it December, May or April due to construction the behavior seeps in. There are the what can I do to catch up and pass groups, the help me to maintain the grade that I have( no more assignments please is the translation of that title.) , and the I am done why aren't you group?( translation can we just watch movies to the end?). Over eight school days ago I gave French 1 and 2 a notebook assignment instead of a final. Purpose to review the year, and the second is to create a notebook they can use next year if they go on. Long story short it is due next Monday and some have only three pages done. It is to be 8 sections with 5 pages minimum per section and I do not allow cut and paste material for the majority of the pages. Also since we do not have 1to 1 computers here, I wan t it in 2oth century style notebook format so they can use it whenever. This has disturbed some who want to go purely digital and/or do it in power point which is unnecessary. Oh Well. Monday will bring revelations I am sure.
College classes end the first week of May but research work is due or will be due soon. They are also in panic mode. I marvel how year end panic exists at either level though the college level is sterner stuff. Most of my classes are full of "non-trad"s as I teach at night. Often they are just returning to college after a span of years and they are spooked from day one. About the time I get them settled and working , research pops up ,and here they go into tail spins again. However most survive.
Lately I have been getting many Afghan vets. Some are really focused and do well; others not so much. In some wars they could be called shell shocked though now we have a fancier term.These are the ones I have to work with more as they seem unsure of themselves and the world we live in. so Sad to see such a result of young people who did what they believe to be right.
Still i enjoy the the classroom even in panic mode and it is often the time when a student can learn valuable lessons--time management, and what happens when you make poor choices. Growing up is not ever easy ; and If I as a teacher can help them learn these lessons with gentleness but firmness about what needs to be done, I fell I have done my job,
College classes end the first week of May but research work is due or will be due soon. They are also in panic mode. I marvel how year end panic exists at either level though the college level is sterner stuff. Most of my classes are full of "non-trad"s as I teach at night. Often they are just returning to college after a span of years and they are spooked from day one. About the time I get them settled and working , research pops up ,and here they go into tail spins again. However most survive.
Lately I have been getting many Afghan vets. Some are really focused and do well; others not so much. In some wars they could be called shell shocked though now we have a fancier term.These are the ones I have to work with more as they seem unsure of themselves and the world we live in. so Sad to see such a result of young people who did what they believe to be right.
Still i enjoy the the classroom even in panic mode and it is often the time when a student can learn valuable lessons--time management, and what happens when you make poor choices. Growing up is not ever easy ; and If I as a teacher can help them learn these lessons with gentleness but firmness about what needs to be done, I fell I have done my job,
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