just like alka-seltzer

What I love the most about Corky is that she effervesces. She is constantly bubbling over with ideas and opinions and plots and projects and plans... There is always something she is so excited to tell you about or something new that she can't wait to try! Her eyes crinkle cutely into a frequent smile accompanied by a squeal of delight, and she most often speaks in exclamation points... I often tease her about having been a cheerleader, but truth be told, I love having someone around with that kind of energy and spunk. (I think her full-throttleness nicely off-sets my sorta low-impact aerboics-ness)

Not to mention her thoughtfulness... sometimes she buys me seltzer for no other reason than she knows I am obsessed with it. And one time after I couldn't get into my can of soup at lunch, guess who left a can opener on my desk the very next day...
I'm only half joking when I say that I am looking for a straight male version of her.

Anyway, platonic co-worker/BFF love affair aside, I was telling her about my Test Prep Yoda idea on the train ride home. And because of her amazing ability to transform ideas into action, my little dress-up day has transformed, at least in our heads, into a plan for a grade-wide skit/ pep rally performed by all the fifth grade teachers, with costumes and "Use the force" banner hung up in the cafeteria. Knowing Corky, I wouldn't be surprised if at this very minute she is hard at work composing a call-and- response cheer (or chant or beat or whatever you call it) involving rhyming words for "strategies" and "protractors" and "main idea" and "rulers."

(By the way, I just want to point out that this type of thing was more what I had in mind when I decided to take my stab at being a teacher... elaborate performances and banners and theme days for inspiration and jubilation, yes. Conference notes and assessment binders, nahsomuch. Opportunities to indulge in frivolity are dishearteningly few and far between under the current regime.)

Now, we'll of course have to see if the other fifth grade teachers and the administration are on board, but basically, we wanna get pumped. If we're gonna have to do test prep, we're gonna seize the day, grab it by the gonads, and do it RIGHT.

These were aptly uplifting thoughts to cap off the day. Corky and Rosy and I stayed 'til six confronting the uglier face of Test Prep -- triangulating all the test prep practice pages we could find in the multiple books and programs we are using to coincide with the list of math topics we had prioritized in order of direness of necessity to teach or re-teach. Quite a thrill.

My confidence kind of took a blow recently because we got some other math test scores back and I fear I am passing my weakness in math along to my students... the other day I heard A-- say he hates math and I was like NNNNNNOOOOoooooo say it ain't so! At the beginning of the year it seemed like they all loved math so much, before I ruined it for them...I was hoping I could bluff my way through it, but I think my secret dysfunctional relationship with math has oozed out into the open.

Anyway, I was heartened to see that I did successfully bluff my way into making the kids be psyched for upcoming Literary Essay unit... we were reading stories and essays and responding to them by freewriting, and when it was time to stop, J-- was like, really? Do we have to? I want to keep going! And I was like mwaaaahahaha, you WILL love literature, I say!

I guess the difference there is I'm not really bluffing so much. I really do believe in reading good literature and responding to it in writing... isn't that pretty much how the world of collective knowledge and learning has functioned for like, eons now? But if you ask me to get all passionate about multiplying decimals, or mean, median and mode, well... that's a harder stunt for me to pull off.

Which brings me to another winding tangent about whether it might be a good idea for teachers to start specializing a little earlier on. I would've been happy to teach the Journalism writing unit all day long, and throw my heart and soul into it and really make it rock. But as it was, and as it more often than not turns out to be, journalism ended up being half-assed (or maybe even quarter-assed) as did the concurrent math and reading units, because I was simpy being stretched in too many different directions.

But anyway, going into March I feel determined. Whatever I have to offer, I plan to give it all I got. And as a person I felt kind of like, empowered and competent today. Not just at doing my job - that still feels quite tenuous at times, but I felt like I was making progress in knowing how to live. (Took long enough, I'm only at the midway mark of my twenties...) So I mean, I worked hard till six, but then I let myself leave, knowing what remained undone could remain that way until tomorrow if it had to. And then, even though I got off the train feeling all "wah wah wah, I'm stressed out and hungry and tired" I made myself keep my promise to go to the gym today - I was like, dude, suck it up, eat a protein bar, clothes are already in the bag, just go -- and it was a positively transcendent workout. The best kind. I hereby disallow and dissavow excuses for not doing the things I know are best for me.

And right now, what's best for me is to get a good night's sleep.