fenced in

the lotz household needs a recommendation for a fencing company to come build us a lovely 3-4 ft wooden fence. if you have suggestions, please let us know.

speaking of fences, quite a few of coacher's athletes have disregarded fences altogether, as evidenced by their high number of homeruns. freshmen, in particular, seem unphased by the presence of fences in the outfield...also, it's worth noting that mark queen hit a "bomb" at practice yesterday. you should ask him about it.

for those of you who don't know, coacher is doing a great job with his very young team so far this year. he's cool, calm, and collected (but also pretty hot in his baseball uniform).

yesterday.

i have been promising some of Coacher's 2nd graders that i would bring banjo (kitty) to meet them sometime before the end of the year. yesterday was the day.

the day looked a little like this:
7:40 - at MSU to meet a student to make sure he had everything in order to take the GED. he was late.

8:10 - left the student alone to take his test. he's independent, so he wouldn't care if i was gone all day. went to the MSU library to print about 100-150 pages of articles about teenage pregnancy and absent fathers for a research proposal that needs to be turned in for editing tomorrow.

8:35 - apparently left my jump drive (including all saved articles and my research proposal in progress) in the computer at the library.

9-ish - got banjo for the ride to rogersville elementary. she cried and crawled all over throughout the trip until she perched on the back of the back seat .

9:10 - apparently got caught by the helicopters doing 72 in a 60 mph zone. i blame this on banjo but, according to Coacher, banjo can't pay the fine so i get credit for it.

9:11-9:16 - got pulled over by a highway patrolman in rogerville and during this time shook while trying to find all necessary documents, keeping a shaking banjo from jumping out of the window, and explaining that i usually don't drive around with a cat in my car. he wasn't really interested in my explanation.

9:17 - took my ticket and drove on, slowly.

9:45 - (because i drove about 45 mph from then on) got to school with banjo, where the kids freaked out with joy and in response, banjo scratched the poo out of my neck.

9:45-10:30 - held a scared and shaking banjo as approximately 20 kids at a time petted her, patted her, made faces at her and told me every single story of every cat they ever had, heard of, or saw a picture of. most stories ended with "and then it died." banjo took it well by hunkering down in my lap, closing her eyes and shaking. i told the kids she liked them because i thought she was "purring."

10:31 - breathed a sigh of relief that banjo hadn't struck out at anyone.

10:32 - left the elementary and drove home at 45 mph.

11:10 - left for MSU to meet the test-taker.

11:45-12:00 - found the test-taker, who hadn't eaten lunch because he didn't bring money. made him get lunch and shove it down his throat quickly before he had to get back to testing. (you can't think on an empty stomach!!)

the rest of the day was sort of a blur with a huge track meet mixed in. needless to say, taking banjo to Coacher's school might not have been the best idea, but i couldn't go back on my promise to those kids, and they loved it...

on a side note, i found out on tuesday night that one of my former students shot and killed someone last saturday. he was a very bright boy; it's sad to see someone with so much potential go down like that. when i heard the news i said "lock him up." then i heard that he might have been trying to protect his cousin from someone, which makes the situation very sticky....

new rules and a glimpse of daily events

I’ve now been doing this particular job for about 6 months or so, and in that time i've come up with some new rules that i think i'll instate for next year:

1 - do not complain to me about things over which i have no control. yes, i know it's about 97 degrees in here every day, but i checked with some people and it turns out no one else cares. tough cookies. i have lost just as much weight through sweating as the rest of you.

2 - do not ask me what time you get out of class. the schedule has no changed all year long, and it's a waste of my breath to tell you every day.

3 - when i am attempting to carry on a conversation with 4 students while trying to help 2 with their work, do not interrupt. i can only handle about 6 brain processes at one time.

4 - look for your folder at least 8 times before telling me it's not in the crate. trust me; it's in there (unless you didn't put it in there when you left class.)

5 - no whining. you're in high school. it doesn't work anymore (at least, not at school).

6 – lying doesn’t ever really help you out. oh really, you didn’t call me a b*** just because i told you to stop talking while the guest speaker was talking? that’s weird, because I am absolutely sure that’s what I heard come out of your mouth. And really? you weren’t listening to music on the internet? (which I’ve warned you about 6 times already…by the way, it’s a district policy. Revert back to rule #1). I can actually pull up your computer screen and watch every move you make, and I saw you. I SAW YOU. I’ve known at least one professional liar, and you are not very good at it.

7 - if I see your IPOD out, it’s mine. I won’t even turn it in to the administrators; I’ll just sell it on eBay. (I could make a killing on this policy (but there’s probably some sort of law about not selling kids’ stuff.)

That’s all the rules I have so far. As you might guess, this job has been tough…very challenging students/attitudes. But here’s the deal: I do not share this information because I want to you pity me or anything like that. I knew (for the most part) what I was getting into when I took the job. At-risk youth, that’s how it goes. Most of them don’t have parents to teach them right and wrong, let alone love them and make them feel like their lives are worth living and improving. (Example: One girl basically has a restraining order against her mom. The school isn’t supposed to tell her anything about what her daughter is doing. She lived in her car for a while, and she also held down two jobs while taking care of her nephews. I cannot imagine. Another student’s mom keeps deciding she’s going to pack up and move away to some other state (it varies with the day) so she can be with some guy she’s just met. And this kids has worked SO hard to get his academics in line…it breaks my heart.)

Anyway, this job has made me more understanding and calm in sticky situations, yet thick-skinned at the same time. (My thin skin has always been a weakness, and while Coacher might not see me in action at school I think he might be proud of the improvements being made). At times I wonder at how I can so calmly tell a student that I know for a fact that he has just lied to my face or that (for the 100th time) I know it stinks to have to actually do WORK at school. That is so unfair that I’m making him try to graduate! I know the only way I can do it and not take offense is because I have prayed for calm, strength, and thick skin get through the sticky situations

A quick story to give you a glimpse of daily happenings:

Someone just knocked on my door. A student. I wrote him a referral yesterday for continuously talking while we had a guest speaker, sticking his fingers in the back of a computer and messing with the wires, not sitting in the hallway as I’d asked him to do (because if you act like a kindergartener, sometimes you are treated like one), then loudly telling his friends in the hallway that I am a b*** and that I told him to do such and such and he said, “f*** no!” as I walked by. (Of course, he really said the words, and a few others, I’m sure.) He just now told me that he didn’t call me that, nor did he say anything else bad that I wrote him up for. He said I just heard his friends talking about other stuff. He explained that because he got a referral he will be sent back to live in a group home. I let him speak his piece, and then I said that I am sure it was him saying all of that. He said that when they (administrators?) checked the cameras and saw that he didn’t say it I would feel really bad for getting him put back in the group home. I said (genuinely) I would feel terrible if he got put back in a group home because of my mistake, so if he wanted to go have people check the cameras he could. Of course he didn’t want to do that (then we would all see proof that he really did say it). He got all agitated about it and said he was getting out of my class.

I almost cried.

For joy.

But some kids really are a joy, and those are the ones I have to focus on.

life in numbers

3/5 - number of fights at school / days last week

4.5 - school days til Spring Break

3 - times coacher has forgotten my birth date

0 - number of times coacher has forgotten shooter's birth date (coacher will debate this, but it's true when you look at the bare facts…i’m not offended or mad. i just like to pester him about it.)

8 - number of weekends in february and march

.5 - number of free weekends we have/had in february and march

1 - number of referrals i wrote first semester

3 - number of referrals i have written so far in the 3rd quarter alone

13 - average number of times i went to the YMCA per month in January and February

9 - average number of times i saw "the barenaked lady" at the YMCA (how uncomfortable! she is there m/w/f, by the way...i now try to do most of my YMCA workouts Tuesday and thursday...)

7 - my fav number

3 - number of hours i napped last sunday (i usually don't take naps...)

6 - number of hours left until i have a master's degree.

8.31 - number of months we've been married.

8.31 - number of months i've felt cherished by my husband.

5 - number of times we had to re-do the new yard because it failed inspection due to "dirt clumps" and "dirt on the sidewalk." it was february, for pete's sake.

4 - number of track athletes i'm responsible for this spring. (distance runners...love ‘em!)

too many to count - number of chapters i'm behind in my daily Bible reading

1 - number of attempts i've made at dave ramsey-style bargaining (does that tell you anything about how successful i was? i should say that i didn't really "bargain," but my attempt was as close as this girl's going to get to bargaining with a sales clerk.

5:35 - average time the lotz household wakes up during the week.

2,276 - number of favors we owe my parents for all the work they've done lately.



this is completely unrelated, but i feel the need to say a little something about words (since i'm a certified english teacher and all):

uncomfortable - i love to hear coacher say this word. he enunciates every syllable.

touch - this is a terrible name for a restaurant. it makes me uncomfortable.

moist - so many people dislike this word i'm not even sure why it's in the dictionary.

spaz - this was my favorite word in middle school

unscum - i don't know the origin of this word in my life, but i usually use it in place of the word "unbelievable." if i don't say it out loud, that doesn't mean i'm not thinking it.

hillen - this partial word can go in from of many other words, and all of them actually make sense to me. weird.

not - i really liked the days when people would say a sentence, pause, and then say "not." it's biblical and everything.

they grow up so fast

okay, yes, now i post pictures of pets. i used to make fun of people for that. but we don't have kids (not that pets are people; they are not), sooo...

for sale: house and STUFF

we will have two large bookcases, some cookware, a ton of clothes, and lots of other fun stuff for sale tomorrow at our moving sale. come visit us at 1906 S. Maryland (former Lotz home), near National and Sunshine. as a bonus, the whole stinkin' house is for sale, too!

i think we should also have some baby and kids clothes at the sale, because my sisters-in-law have popped out a lot of babies over the years and i think it's probably time they sold some stuff. also, i have managed to fill an ENTIRE room in my parents' house with "stuff" over the last 7 years or so...i hope to get rid of all of it.

if you spend enough money we might just throw in the house as a bonus. it is oh-so cute, but oh-so small for this old married couple and our pets.

house arrest

"no, i don't think you can be on the track team when you are on house arrest. something about the ankle bracelet being a bit constricting. plus, it's just not that fashionable, and it doesn't match our uniforms. sorry."

that's what i wanted to say.