the Black and White cookie

Thirteen Things I have GIVEN UP ON 1. Trying to explain the good in the ACLU to some people. (my mom knows what I am talking about here…) 2. Extrinsic Rewards for kids…that does not mean I am not out-voted by collegues….often. I don’t work with Alfie Kohn. 3. Asking my DH to make the bed. 4. Expecting others to be at least as smart as me. 5. Hoping people “get” how important my job is, or at least how much I care about it. 6. Getting my DH to read a book. 7. Applying logic directly to middle school students, or humans. 8. Expecting technology people at my work to be even 1/10 as useful as technology people anywhere else on the planet. 9. Grammatical Issues, including: went/gone, using ‘they’ when the pronoun should be singular, and I/me (I was a mess over #4 & #5, please take out your red pen if you must). 10.My in-laws ends sentences in “with.” I am slowly going insane from this…..”Do you want to go with?” 11.Being paid for my efforts. 12.running, “I choose not to run.” The whole world is my Duncan….. 13.It is possible Jerry is talking about me in The Cartoon Episode (although I was not, in fact, Susan Ross’ old college roommate): “Kramer: Oh! Yeah your old college roommate huh? Jerry: No , It’s Susan Ross’s old college roommate; she moved to New York a few years ago . she’s trying to become an actress. Kramer: Hmmm,, Dramatica comedia heh!Jerry: Untalented, She’s always inviting me to see her in some bad play in tiny room without ventilation. It’s really depressing. Kramer: Euh.. We don’t go to enough theater. Jerry: She should just give up.”Links to other Thursday Thirteens! 1

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Woah…I always enjoy 30 Days, but this one was something else!

Episode Five of this season sees Jennifer, a ProChoicer, stay in a church sponsored maternity center for 30 days.  Jennifer was unbelievably calm and openminded with the people she encountered, the same could not be said for some she met in this experience.

I was upset with the premise initially, thinking this was just pro-life porpoganda.  The coverage was balanced.  Balanced. That I think was the theme of the episode.  While ProChoice offers options(choices), ProLife only offers the option of carrying the child to term and then exploring options. 

This doesn’t have to do with the show, but it seems to me ProLifers are about counting bodies saved and not concerned about what happens to those bodies.  Jennifer raised quality of life issues - which I stauntly agree with - but my fav. quote “ProLife?  You ever notice how some people’s concern for life stops at birth?  They want those babies to come out & then they don’t give a damn what happens to them” Anita VanBuren (S. Empatha Merkerson) Law & Order’s Progeny episode from 1995 says it all for me.

From The Water is Wide:

“I saw the necessity of living and accepting bullcrap in my midst.  It was everywhere.  In the teachers’ manuals, in the platitudes muttered by educators, in schoolboards, in the community, and most significantly in myself.  I could be so self-righteous, so inflexiblewhen I thought I was right or that the children had been wronged.  I lacked diplomacy and would not compromise.  To survive in the future I would have to learn the complex art of ass-kissing, that honorable American custom that makes the world go ’round.  Survival is the most important thing.  As a bona fide ass-kisser, I might lose a measure of self respect, but I could be teaching and helping kids.”

Found this site dedicated to George Costanza and could not be happier to revisit a recent thought I shared with DH just this Friday.  Being a social recluse is not working and I must always do the opposite of what I want to do when invited somewhere now, I must accept and show up.

“Why did it all turn out like this for me? I had so much promise. I was personable. I was bright. Oh, maybe not academically speaking, but I was perceptive. I always know when someone’s uncomfortable at a party. It all became very clear to me sitting out there today, that every decision I’ve ever made in my entire life has been wrong. My life is the complete opposite of everything I want it to be. Every instinct I have in every aspect of life, be it something to wear, something to eat… It’s often wrong.”

- George, in “The Opposite”

Bald men with no jobs and no money who live with their parents don’t approach strange women.”

- George, in “The Opposite”

 

“A job with the New York Yankees! This has been the dream of my life ever since I was a child, and it’s all happening because I’m completely ignoring every urge towards common sense and good judgement I’ve ever had. This is no longer just some crazy notion, Elaine, Jerry. This is my religion.”

- George in “The Opposite”

Well, it’s simply genius. I plan on working with this theory until adbucted by some lunatic and then I will look for a new plan.

1. I passed four confederate flags on my way home from work today, just 13 miles
   (remind me to tell you the story of the day after GA changed their state flag)
2. Large diet cherry limeades….mmmmmm…..10 cals 32 oz
3. “Yes ma’am”
4. Seperation of agnostics(atheists) and state
5. “Thank you” (but, say it like the Brenda Lee character from The Closer)
6. Fried green tomatoes at Folks
7. Everyone cooks, well
8. No (noteworthy) unions
9. The heat (in August)
10. The heat (come January)
11. Living in Hardiness Zone 7b
12. Living in the country
13. Living in a great new house

Which of these do you think (I think) are good/bad?

First day of school with the kids yesterday.  The kids were coming to the Middle School for the first time.  Three elementary schools merge into our school and for the first year any parent that has a student attending a non-AYP school can send their child to an AYP school, which is us.
Being a new teacher to the school, along with three other brand new teachers to the profession, I was given bus duty. 
Have you been outside in America lately? 
How about in Georgia?  In the parking lot?
So….it’s the first day of school and the major NFL camp literally across the road is having a free publicity day.  Spectators were parked in our bus loop, parents had the road jammed picking their kiddies up and fans were trying to get in and out of the football training camp.  Accordingly the duty took longer then usual.
I walked to the bus ramp at 3:30 and left at 4:30.  I had been dressed nice for the first day of school.  I swear I seriously thought about taking of my bra.  It was soaked along with everything else of course. 
When I finally got into the car to drive home (fun because of all the traffic) the thermometer read 103* after I was driving at a pretty good clip.

I have to do something about “Bus Duty” before I die next week.

The kids bussing in from other schools also gave me the queems.  I wonder if this is what the original desegregation looked like (minus the pro-team across the street)?

I spent $30 in the teacher store yesterday (and made mental notes for Thurdsay’s shoppping) and $12 in the office store (with more to go).

Georgia’s governor Sonny Perdue has decided to ‘give’ teachers $100 to spend anyway they want on their classroom in this election year.  The spending can only happen on the tax free holiday of Aug. 3rd-6th however.  Ever the cynic, doesn’t it just stand to reason that with a captive audience retail establishments will just stop the back to school sales, or worse yet jack up their prices to accomodate the loss?  And couldn’t the school system just let us use purchase orders to avoid taxes to begin with?  These purchases will be auditted through the state after we use our prepaid visa cards, so no one’s buying shoes….

Gimmick, worse yet, gimmick that will make shopping for B to S unpleasant.