AWOL

Where are you, Lindsi? Adam? Aren't y'all co-directors? What kind of leadership is that? Jana, are you out there somewhere? Joel? Where's Andy? I though you were going to bring him and the rest of the family? Where is the love? I thought with all the time in D.C. that we spent together, that would have meant something. Sonya, Jerome, JT, and Jonathan: I'm here. Where are you? Amanda and Madison: There's food at Hildegard's. Valerie, now that we don't have a class, we no talk? Amy: There were plenty of opportunities to use spit marks tonight. Katie: You don't have to kill deer to join us on the Blog. Kat and Andrea: We would have even bought you dinner in celebration of your thesis defenses. Breah: There are no "pink futures" on the Blog. Donna C.: Teaching science is no excuse for deserting your friends. Sheri: We have French music and no drama. Kathy: We mixed a special potion for you for not coming.

Seriously, we missed you all, and we look forward to the next gathering. Be there or beware!

wild clicks

Well, I just wiped out what I wrote with one errant click. It was just rambling anyway. But, hey my food's here so—time out! Okay, I'm back. While I was away I let my mind wander on and off the topic. I scrolled through the past postings and snickered to myself as I misread some of the thoughts. The talk was on vacations and spring break. As my eyes scanned the notions, I stopped short at the one that I thought said "Freak Week for Teachers." What was really written was "Free Week for Teachers." I wonder what a freak week for teachers would be like. What do teachers do when they freak. I saw a show on "E" channel last night about wild spring breaks. I watched for about a half an hour, including, commercials, before I just got disgusted and changed the channel. At what point did our society decide that it was okay for college students to get so dangerously intoxicated? When did it become socially acceptable for girls to bump and grind, dry hump strangers, and display their breasts all while whooping and hollering? What ever happened to the notion of indecent exposure? Wet t-shirt contests, mud wrestling, and simulated sex acts. And where are their parents? With all of the publicity that these public exhibitions have generated, surely more than one or two moms or dads have recoginized their little "pride and joy" letting it all hang out.

There's blowing off a little steam after the rigors of academic work, but hasn't it gone over the top? If our future is truly in the hands of the youth, we're in a lot of trouble.

But for the time being....wooohoooo and a flash of the menopausal boobs to one and all! Commuicate this! Wooohooo. Spring Break whenever!

Communication

Last week, I returned to work at Hahira Middle School to no Internet. At first, it was refreshing. If there is no Internet, then there are no angry e-mails from parents asking me why I haven't updated my grades since February, which was impossible since the 3rd nine weeks ended in March. I digress . . .



Tuesday came along, and yet again no Internet. But it posed a new problem: we had to print out our 5th period rosters so that the lunchroom would have their ID numbers. Because my team rotates classes, I could not just print out a roster from class XP. So, my class was close to 10 minutes late to lunch.



There would also be no checking out of books from the Media Center during this time. Why? Because the computers were down. Thank goodness my students could still do SuccessMaker. I would hate for them to miss the opportunity to have lunch detention with me for not doing it.



By Wednesday, the Internet was up and running. Ironically, there was no all-call to announce that we were up and running unlike the frequent announcements earlier in the week that "The Internet is down."



I hate to admit that I missed the Internet, but I did. Every once and a while, I would sit down at my computer and click on the familiar icon just to see if I would be transported to my homepage, http://www.nyc.gov/. I longed to see Mayor Bloomberg's smiling face. Oh, the profound disappointment I felt when I was unable to connect! Like calling a lover only to hear the phone ring incessantly. (Okay, so I'm exaggerating.)

When did the Internet become a part of daily life? I think my feelings of withdrawal were compounded by the four days that I spent in Washington, D.C. with only a cell phone and an Ipod as forms of entertainment.

I left for Washington on April 2 to attend the NWP's annual Spring Meeting. I stayed at Toutorsky Mansion, where I had a bed and a desk. Don't get me wrong; I'm not complaining; I actually was happy to be free of distractions because I had about 100 pages to read for my grad class and plenty of papers to grade. But there is something about having background noise to keep you company. And Internet to distract you.

The Internet is great. Where else can I find shoes for my size 5 feet? I have traveled to New York, Chicago, Washington, and let me tell you, THEY DO NOT HAVE SHOES FOR SIZE 5 FEET! I am also able to buy wedding presents for my friends and former cheerleaders and baby presents for babies far away in exotic places like Texas. Best of all, I can buy box sets of Homicide: Life on the Street because no place in Valdosta carries it. Life indeed is good.

Communication Meltdown

I've probably written about this before, but it's one of my favorite misunderstandings. Wes and I were watching _America's Funnest Videos_ one night, and some young child was playfighting with her brother, shouting, "You want a piece of meat?!" I guess she didn't understand the concept of "a piece of me." For a while whenever Wes or I bugged each other just a little bit, we'd glare at the other and say, "You want a piece of ham?" We received strange looks for quite a while.

The creme brule cheesecake at Hildegard's is really good tonight.

My mind isn't on communication or misunderstandings. Instead, I keep thinking about the packing to do, the early morning flight, the lack of sleep for twenty-four hours--yuck. But then I think about the beaches, the Parthenon, walking in the steps of Greek gods and goddesses, and I'm willing to overlook the headache of getting there. Renee said we need to rent mopeds on Santorini--it's a great way to see the island. I just can't wait. I want to fast-forward through the next twenty-four hours and be there.

Misunderstood lyrics: Yeah, I'm pretty notorious for this one.

"Suicide blonde" = "soup and salad bar"--I guess I was hungry that day

And yet, despite my notoriety, I can't think of another example that's clean enough to put on the blog. Hmm, my mind really isn't firing on all cylinders right now.

My mind stalls, laughing at me while I fumble for meaning. I scan the bookshelves before me, looking for inspiration. Nothing. I see a big book on mythology. How appropriate. Ooh, there's a book called _Finding What You Didn't Lose_. That's an intriguing title. I wonder what I need to find.

The search is on:

• more time--I desperately need to find more time in the semester, in the day, in the week.
• willpower--I should have resisted the cheesecake, but I thought, "I should treat myself. Tomorrow's going to be a rough day." I wonder what my excuse would have been if I were in town tomorrow.
• a maid--okay, I know I haven't lost this because I've never had one, but I really want someone to come clean the house every other day or so. It feels lazy of me to admit this, but it's part of the more time problem. Perhaps paying someone to help out will give me more time. I'll just start to consider my time more valuable . . .
• sleep, sleep, sleep

I need way more than I can list right now.

Sorry. I feel dull tonight, no sparkling wit, no funny stories, just a mind distracted, pulled in different directions. Maybe next time I write I'll be smarter.

Write Night

Okay, the topic for tonight's Write Night is Communication. I know it's broad, but it lends itself to lots of possibilities:

• constant communication devices (email, walkie talkies, cellphones, pagers, etc.)--who uses them, where, why, when they're appropriate and when they're not
• communication snafus (misheard lyrics, baby confusion, gendered communication miscues, etc.)
• silent communication (body language, eyes as windows to the soul--I almost put soil, eww! Can you just imagine someone with eyes pressed to the ground? I wonder what that person would see.)
• quick messages (bumper stickers, billboards, scrolling announcements on television, etc.)

I'm sure there are many more possibilities, so go wherever you want with it--or ignore it completely and write whatever you want as always.

If you come to the blog to grab the topic and then write off line, consider returning to the blog to post your favorite line, paragraph, stanza, sentence, whatever. It's fun to hear multiple voices. Also, try to read some other people's posts and comment on them. If you aren't yet a member of the blog, you can still comment, but you'll have to wait for Lindsi or me to clear the comment for publication--sorry.

Invitations!

Invitations have been issued to the 2008 Fellows to join the blog, so we may have new voices on the blog soon. The next Write Night is Tuesday, April 15, at 6:30 at Hildegards or here on the blog. Please join us.