She Sighs With Relief

Today was one of those Mondays that I expected I would have to grit my teeth and tough it through. The lesson that I planned before leaving on Friday had just seemed a little off, and as I've noted before, the kids this year are just a little high maintenance. So how surprised was I when every class proceeded quite smoothly with nary a blank stare? It seems like the students are finally settling into a routine, and our daily practice and expectations are finally becoming a common language. Fingers crossed for tomorrow...

Meet the McGees

Once, a long time ago, I opened the door to let my cat in for dinner and he deposited a live white mouse on the doormat before hurrying off to eat his Fancy Feast. We spent some time speculating about where our cat had been-- had he raided a science lab? stolen someone's pet? saved the little rodent from becoming snake food? --but neither the cat nor the mouse was talking.

The mouse was completely unharmed but clearly unfit for outdoor life, so we did what any other nutty animal lovers would do. We got a tank and some cedar shavings and kept him as our pet. We had another cat named Molly at the time, and she was fascinated by him, spent hours watching his tank (we called it MTV, mouse TV), and so we named him Fibber. Soon we began saying that all of our pets had the last name of McGee: they were Molly, Fibber, Oliver, Noah, and Silly McGee. When we rescued a betta fish from a floral arrangement at a party a few months later, we named him Bobby and he fit right in.

The McGees are all long gone now, gone the way of so many beloved pets, but they are not forgotten. Tonight I heard that the Philippines is bracing for Typhoon McGee; at least that's what it sounded like on the radio. McGee seemed like a strange name for a Pacific storm, so I looked it up and found that it was actually "Megi," which by some accounts means catfish. That works, but Typhoon could have been a great name for a canary or maybe even an iguana, too.

Free Range Yeast

A couple of weeks ago I heard a piece on the radio about a more traditional approach to cooking, one that focuses on technique rather than exact recipes. Ken Albala, history professor and co-author of The Lost Art of Real Cooking described for example, how easy it is to make bread without using store-bought yeast. It seems that flour and water stirred together and left alone will attract the wild yeast that reside everywhere. Who could resist the temptation to put such a premise to the test?

So last weekend I whisked together my starter. Albala also mentioned that the powdery substance on the outside of fresh grapes is none other than yeast (who knew?), so I tossed a few seedless reds into the mixture and pushed it to the back corner of the counter. As recommended, every morning I fed it some more flour and water to prevent the alcohol from overwhelming the growing yeast population. My brew bubbled and foamed, and this morning I kneaded in some more flour and water with a pinch of salt, still finding it hard to have faith that the dense dough would rise without that little yellow packet of Fleischmanns.

This evening I can report success! I wrangled that wild yeast into the prettiest little loaf of bread around. It had a crisp crust outside, a moist, chewy texture inside, and it was delicious.

And in just a couple of weeks my saurkraut will be ready, too.

Boundaries

There's a wonderful poem called Dog in Bed by Joyce Sidman in which she describes how her dog hogs the bed at night, forcing her to reposition herself to accommodate her pet. At the end she writes:  

This is how it is with love.
Once invited,
it steps in gently,
circles twice,
and takes up as much space
as you will give it.

This is how it is with teaching, too. Our contract day may be seven-and-a-half hours, but the job is impossible to do in that time span. Planning and grading alone will push your day to nine hours or more, never mind any clubs or study halls you sponsor. It's easy to see how each additional hour you spend will benefit your students, and isn't that why so many of us are here? But if you're not careful, it might start to seem like time you take for yourself is time you take from your students, and that's not good for anyone.

Back and Forth

It's funny how the unrelated conversations of the day can often be thematic. For example, at our team meeting today the discussion turned to security and background checks for field trip chaperons. "Things sure are different than when I started," I said. "Nobody did much checking on me... they don't even have my fingerprints on file."

We all agreed that times have changed since 1993 when I began teaching. Later in the day I ran into two seventh graders from my home room last year.

"Hey old TA teacher!" one greeted me.

"Hey old TA student," I replied in turn.

"Are you going to have my brother, too?" he asked. "He's coming next year."

"Maybe," I shrugged. "I hope so."

"He's exactly like me except he does his homework," he told me.

"He sounds perfect!" I said. "Now, I'm going to make sure I get him."

"What about my sister?" asked the other student. "She was born on Sunday."

"Last Sunday?" I asked.

He nodded.

"Congratulations!" I told him. "Why not? In eleven years, I'll take her, too."

"Eleven years?!?" the first student exclaimed. "Aren't you ever going to retire?"

Thank Heaven for Little Boys

Here's the first draft of a free verse poem that one of my students turned in today:

I have Toy Story 3
the game for my Xbox
360. It has two modes
in it, story mode and
toy box mode.

In story mode it has
eight levels. Toy box
mode you can make
an old western town
of your own. You also
have to do missions from
the townspeople.

I heard the movie
was going to come out
on DVD on November 2.
I've seen the movie
with my dad in June and we liked it.

Rooting Around

Back in the late spring I had a big sweet potato on the counter that was beginning to sprout. On a whim, I chopped it into three pieces and buried it in a corner of the garden and pretty much ignored the vines as they spread their way across the plot all summer long. Today on my way home from school I harvested 15 pounds of sweet potatoes! How incredibly exhilarating it was to dig down into the soil with my bare hands and ease the giant roots from the ground-- one of them was two pounds by itself. It was more than a fair return for all the unwanted roots I dug up and tossed aside as I weeded all season.

Oh the potatoes I'll plant next year!