Genie Appeared to a California Man

One day a genie appeared to a California man and offered to grant him one wish.

The man said:” I wish you’d build a bridge from here to Hawaii so I could drive there anytime”

The genie frowned” I don’t know. It sounds like quite an undertaking,” he said. “Just think of the logistics. The supports required reaching the bottom of the ocean, the concrete, and the steel! Why don’t you pick something else?”

The man thought for a while and then said, “Okay, I wish for a complete understanding of women- what they are thinking, why they cry. I wish I knew how to make a woman truly happy”.

The genie was silent for a minute, then said “So how many lanes did you want on that bridge?”

So during the day when I can’t blog I think of a million things to write about. Now, that I have a moment to do so (and a full week by myself) I can’t eek one creative thing out.
I spend my days encouraging 2nd graders to write what they see, smell, hear and touch in their stories. Right now I feel numb, drained and pooped out.
I had my first teacher dream. I dreamt I was back in 3rd grade. Even though I was as intelligent as my normal 35 year-old self (whatever that means) my teacher didn’t like me and asked me questions like “Name one major news story from yesterdays headlines.” I am notorious for not reading the paper or listening to the news daily. I had no answer and was berated by the teacher. In my dream I sighed and looked around at my Parent Trap (sans child) situation. This time around I was friends with the popular kids. That looked good. I began to fill out my third grade worksheet only to watch my hand writing the word “puzzle” with perfect cursive zees. Wow, I know cursive, and none these other third graders do! Maybe this isn’t so bad.
What does this mean? It means I am okay with being back in third grade as long as I am smarter and more popular than I was the first time around. Eureka! I am the teacher!

Now that I’m becomming a teacher I thought it would be funny to list my favorite mean teachers from movies and T.V.  Now that I have been a teacher (all-be-it without pay) I can start to see something more human about them.

10.  The principal from the Breakfast Club, Principal Vernon. Barry Manilow doesn’t know that he raids his wardrobe. He’s an old school bully principal. The giant jerk, but very memorable.

9.   The principal from Ferris Buller. He tries to be like the other princiapl but ends up looking desperate and weak. By the end of the movie you feel pretty sorry for him. He’s truly unlikeable for most of the film. The secretary is a sweety, though.

8.   Principal Skinner, living with his mommy, teacher dating, hot headed principal. He’s the true example of power misplaced.

7.   Mr. Hand is my favorite mean teacher. He’s not really that mean, he’s just trying to teach a giant stoner and insists on ruining the said stoner’s buzz. As a teacher I can see that he actually cares about the baked student and tries to reach him in creative ways, like giving away his pizza. Some teachers would just let him space out and flunk him.

6.  Professor Snape, the classic nerd-becomes-teacher. This is why you don’t go to the same school as your parents, and you don’t teach at the same school as you attended. I personally love Professor Snape, he is the perfect foil to Harry’s oh-so-chosen oneness.

5.   I don’t know his character’s name, but Ben Stiller nails the apathetic High School Teacher role on the head. Of course I feel that way taking hot lunch count, when no one is listening… nachos, nachos grande, who wants nachos grande…anyone?

To be continued.

I found this as a response on a Carrie Fisher’s blog. I really, really like this story and wanted to share.  If the author finds this and reads it, please give yourself credit.

Here’s a story for you: 20 years ago, I knew an obese eating disorder specialist who treated anorexic women. She was seriously obese. No joke!
She used to remind me of Mama Cass with the long brown hair, eccentric clothing and tiny spiked heels. I used to ask myself, “How the heck can this obese woman sit in a room, and run a eating disorder group for a bunch of frail women who are discussing their weight issues?”
I mean, here these women were having conversations about not wanting to eat in fear of becoming fat and here was this specialist living the fear. She was the nightmare all these thin women starved themselves for in order to avoid.
Amazing….but then it dawned on me that this specialist wasn’t the nightmare- she was the inspiration. You know why?
Because she liked herself-she was happy being who she was. That was her silent message as she sat there: It’s not about the weight, it’s about being comfortable in our own skin.

President Obama is a turkey. He’s yummy and chocolate!! Laugh if you must, but this is a compliment from this second grader. Name has been blocked to CMA!

Whew! I just finished my third week of student teaching and it was exciting, frustrating, disappointing, rewarding and most of all, fast.

I was able to teach two things: Math and paragraph leads. My use of “whew” was an example of leading with an expression. The teacher talk is infiltrating my brain, finally. Teacher talk, or correct, professional and common terminology is so important. Because without it, let’s face it, it’s just talk.

And now for the humorous. I’ve been trying to accessorize my former office attire (i.e., I bought some jewelry.) The first week one of the girls in class asked me, “Are those real pearls?”

“No,” I replied.

“I didn’t think so,” she said.

Well, since I work with jewelry appraisers I’ll have by better knock-offs. These fakers were from Talbots so I thought I was on the right track.

My school is in a pretty affluent neighborhood. Yesterday I was doing playground duty (I still laugh every time I hear duty) and notice a building that boarded the playground. Was this building with two story-high, giant windows a church? No, that house belongs to Bobby Smith’s* family. Hmm.

I’m learning how to corral and silence this group of children. I realize of course, that I’ll have to re-learn these skills with another group. I’ve found with these kids it’s like trying to get the attention of a room full of drunks. You either need to make a loud noise or say something very off-beat or interesting. For example praising the listening skills of the rowdiest kid in the room during his two minute break often gets the desired attention.

 Finally, one of the funniest moments was last Friday. For my benefit they were coming up with describing words that matched the first sound of their last name such as Smiling Stevens. It was an exercise to help me remember their last names. One of the boys asked my co-operating teacher (his teacher since September) what her last name was.

She looked at him bewildered and told him. “It’s Jones*. As in Mrs. Jones.”

“No way! That’s your last name,” he responded, honestly shocked.

Wow, you can’t get much past him!

*All names have been changed to CMA.

jem-just-a-ride.mp3

If you want to feel really good about yourself check out this awesome site called GarfieldMinusGarfield

http://garfieldminusgarfield.net/

Which is what Jon would truly be like if we didn’t hear his cat.

These resolutions made me laugh. I’m actually about to fill up the helium balloons right now.

• Quitting Smoking: For every cigarette you smoke, eat two.
• Losing Weight: Put down that shrink ray! Instead, attach thousands of colorful helium balloons to your person. The balloons take pressure off the scale and give you colorful plumage. Soon, you’ll be a neighborhood folk hero beloved by children and ignored by the elderly.

I start student teaching tomorrow and this site will be a forum for me to do daily journals about my student teaching experience. Of course, I will try to add other blog information if I think of it.

I am in a wedding this weekend. I will never be in another non-relative wedding again. I vow. Not only am I wearing Hunter Green the bride, (a 36-year old second time bride) is running around like Scarlet O’Hara and taking serious amounts of my copious time. I’m not even the maid of honor!

Seriously, some people take the “it’s your day” mentality to true diva proportions.

Note to self: never ever include others in a second wedding.

Additional note to self: don’t have a second wedding.

I’ve notice that parts of the 80s are back. Some of the parts I participated in the first round so that makes me out of the loop this round.

I did create a very amusing retro slide show about the PE activity of “Cup Stacking.” Included was the classic Beverly Hills Cop theme. It was a toss up between that and a Herbie Handcock song. Listen to both and pick your favorite.

beverly-hills-cop-axel-foley-theme.mp3

herbie-hancock-rockit.mp3

Now for the fashion. The idea of what 80s fashion should be wasn’t so bad. See below.

How it translated into fashion for the 35 plus demographic was so, so very ugly.

These women were suppose to be well-dressed and highly stylized. The rest of us just ended up with unflattering, drop waist, baggy clothing with shoulder pads the size of the padding in the WonderBras of the early 90s. Hey, I always wondered what they did with all those extra shoulder pads when they dropped out of fashion….

I am by no means a Scrooge, but years ago I decided to be a Christmas time minimalist.

I decorate; I celebrate, but I turn on “Christmas” only on the days it needs to be turned on. By “Christmas” I am not referring to the Christian themes of loving, giving, caring and sharing that we should always be focused on, I’m talking about the Christmas of the Hallmark channel.

That’s the Christmas where everything is perfect, even if you are The Waltons living in the Great Depression. That means if you are an average person living in the Great Recession you better darn well have a perfect Christmas season or something is seriously wrong with you. (By the way, I think they were allowed to call it a Depression back then because Depression did not mean “Get yourself on some pills” like it does now.)

Frankly, I feel this whole month of society-induced expectation for perfection makes everything that is slightly, less-than-perfect magnified. That is why we have the Christmas Blues.

It’s like having a massive, allergic reaction at Disney world. The mind cannot compute. Impossible!

Thank goodness for the recession. At least we all get a shot in the arm of reality this season to remind us that, no matter how close to Martha Stewart’s home ours appears, it will not create world peace.

I’m not trying to begrudge those of you who enjoy the Pre-Christmas high. Personally, I like to use the entire month as a reason to validate consuming copious amounts of alcohol. Just remember all, that some of us feel like bursting into tears all Christmas season because some normal life event has been put under the microscope by the mean, ant bully of society’s expectations.

It isn’t me this year. That is because I have scaled back my expectations of Christmas years ago. I think it started when I tried to get a friend to go to Christmas Eve mass at a snooty Catholic church. She and her friend showed up 80 sheets to the wind and smelling like “My Brother’s Bar.” I still drug them to half the mass, but the dirty looks from the fellow church goers were enough to make me want to hide under a pew even as I type this. Lesson one; you don’t need to go to Christmas service with others.

In conclusion, I’d like to conclude my favorite non-Christmas song that has helped me heal in times of emotional depression and recession. I like to meditate on the words and focus on freeing myself from the baggage that comes, not just with the season but with life.  It’s called “Love is Letting Go of Fear” by Olivia Newton-John.