Walmart

This is a picture of the Walmart in Roswell, New Mexico. My brother and I took a trip there before Thanksgiving. He's been an alien nerd since he was a kid and immediately saw the boon for him when I moved here, making me promise not to go there until he was able to get here and go with me. We were headed for the U.F.O. museum but I needed the bathroom and so we pulled in. We didn't see the alien theme of the Walmart until we had almost parked, it was pretty funny.

So, in 2002 of my favorite Bennington gals convinced to stop shopping at Walmart for a myriad of reasons that I won't go into here. I stopped cold turkey, deciding that I didn't mind spending what little money I had on less by shopping at other stores. Since then I can count on one hand the number of Walmarts I've been in walletless with family, friends and for the free bathroom since then.

The last time was with a friend as I was helping him get ready for a party. Before that it had been about three years. This was also to be my first Super Walmart experience. My students idolize the Super Walmart and I had heard all about the aisles of frozen dinners and pizzas and other foods that I could only imagine was full of all sort of chemicals that little bodies don't need. The thing is that food is cheap and the families that attend our school are certainly not rollin' in the dough. I was imagining there were three or four aisles. I was so wrong. There were seven long wide aisles. It was really gross.

And so you can imagine the surprised but icky feeling when I opened up a gift card from the Church that adopted our school for Christmas and Thanksgiving. It contained a 100.00 gift card to Walmart. It was an incredibly large gesture (and I was thankful for it) as each teacher received one. At first, I decided that I wasn't going to use it, but then The Boy reminded me that it would be a completely empty political statement because Walmart already had the money. Then I decided I would use on supplies for the classroom. What I ended up doing was spending it on prizes for the winners of the English Spelling Bee I put together last week. I also decided to make the The Boy go with me because a, it was his fault I was going anyway, b I like it when he drives and c, I needed someone to shoot horrified looks at as we walked from aisle to aisle.

And so we had to decide which one to go to. The closest one is also the most robbed Walmart in the West (or some scary statistic like that.) Hence, we chose the other one that's pretty close. As we walked in the first thing I noticed was the lighting. It was DIM inside. It felt like the power was out and the secondary lighting had kicked on. When we finally found the toys, The Boy pointed out an aisle just in front of the toy area. The shelves were full of candy and soda. From where we were standing, not even in the aisle yet, we could see over sixty packages of oreos. They were stacked three across from the top of shelf to the bottom, eight or nine shelves worth. Next to those were just as many packages of Kit Kat bars, then snickers, then soda and then more candy. The message was obvious and sick. No wonder we have a nationwide problem with childhood obesity.

We got some great classic board games as prizes for the top spellers and then those awesome animal capsules as prizes for all the kids that participated though. It was a relief to get back outside. This trip definitely solidified my belief that Walmart should not be shopped at.

Meet Han Solo!

Shortly after The Boy (my middle man) sold my Harrison on Craigslist, we bought a new to us car! It's a 2007 Subaru Impreza! It's a stick shift (which I think we will continue to buy as long as we can) and we love it! I really recommend CarMax. They were so helpful and easy to work with. It's just like driving my old car. We love it! And to continue with the theme, his (because I'm not going to "shift" a girl) name is Han Solo!

Dog Days of January

I wanted to tie up some loose ends that I left when I stopped blogging for so long.

Ms. Jenson is still a bit of a nutter, but I have a little more respect for what she does in the classroom now. I do still have some problems working with her. The first being that during the first set of parent teacher conferences, she told all the parents (with me sitting right there) that I was responsible for all of the academic concepts the student were learning, except for Social Studies and she was only responsible for whether or not the students were learning Spanish. This was incredibly frustrating for me. I only have each class for half a day. There is no way I can cover all the academic subjects for both grades in that amount of time. I have spoken to Sr. Callejo about this and he agrees something needs to be done, he just isn't exactly sure what to do. I hope it's figured out soon, because report cards are coming up again and I really don't want all the work put on me again.

First, Fiona came back! Her little sister didn't because their mother can't deal with Ms. Jenson. Getting Fiona back felt so good though. I really don't think she would have done as well in a huge inner city middle school as she would do with us. I guess that's probably true for all our students, but I really feel close to Fiona. Her mum told us that she didn't like the other school at all and basically begged to come back to us. That made me feel really good. Of all the kids, she is the one I would choose to find out about as she grows up and moves on.

Kismet has been causing quite a lot of trouble lately. He's probably spent a total of an hour in my classroom all week because he gotten into so much trouble before his class even gets to mine. It has gotten to the point where no adult in the school can keep his body safe. In the past four days, he's climbed to some pretty high heights after being asked not to take his feet off the ground and dropped from them. The first time he landed on his arm and came close to breaking it, the second time he landed on his face and scratched it up. He doesn't do these things while he mother is at the school with him obviously but once she leaves it's all over. I really feel like I can't be held responsible for his personal safety because he listens to nothing I say and then chooses to do the most dangerous thing. He'll be in class and then disappear. I can't chase him because I'm also responsible for the other 11 children in my class. His family doesn't seem to understand how dangerous this is.

I've lost some other students, I'm down to 12 students in the fourth grade. I have only two girls in that class now. The third grade class has been fluctuating a bit. One of my favorite students, who didn't show up at the beginning of this year, showed up on Monday. Hector was one of my kindergardeners and it's nice to have him back!

We got a new student, who has been causing a lot of trouble. He's been making a lot of gang related comments and threatening to hurt other kids. It's been quite the experience. I think of my third graders as relatively hard core kids, they have a lot of energy and a lot of street knowledge, but after spending time with Chris, I'm pretty sure most of them are scared s*&@less of this kid. He's only been here a few weeks, but as missed three days because of external suspension and two days worth of internal suspension

I don't feel like the year is half over... at all.

It's been awhile...

That's for sure. And I swear it's not a New Year's Resolution to return to blogging!

The first thing I would like say is that my drive to work has gotten easier. I live about half a block off of one of the main roads through the city. ALDR is a few block off the main road. Since the city is built on a grid, there are many ways to get to work. However, I have oft lamented that there was wasn't an easy way to cross over to the road that ALDR is on. Instead of turning left out of my driveway and turning directly onto the big road, I have been turning right and then left through a stoplight in the opposition direction of where I need to go. I do this because it is very hard to see in either direction at the intersection of my street and the big road. Once I have gotten onto the big road, depending on the patterning of the numerous traffic lights, deciding when to turn left off the big road. After crossing a few streets, I can go down to that road and then cross over a few more to get to the school. (I'm not sure if this description is coming off as more or less complicated than it actually is...I'm hoping for the former...because it is.) Of course, the days I would like to stop and get coffee on the way to work there's less time playing the traffic lights and more time turning at a specific place in order to get the coffee.

Now, a streetlight has been added at the intersection of my own street and the big road! So now, I can turn left out of my driveway and skip going out of my way! If I want to get coffee however, not much changes, except that I still don't have to do the part that takes me out of my way. Other than that part because the city is built on a grid it doesn't make the drive shorter per ce, but it does make it more succinct.

Here is a little picture I drew to show the difference! The solid line is old way, the dotted line is the new way, and that thing in the middle is my coffee shop!


So, let me explain a little about my hiatus. After one my last posts about Peter (whose behavior as improved considerably and seems to actually enjoy school these days!) and his medication, I got a comment that I did not make public. In effect, this person insinuated that I was wrong to write about my students. I often worry about the people I work with finding out about my blog as I do not always show my colleagues and students in the best light. I do strive to write the truth as I see it, from my point of view. I suppose if I continue to write, that is simply a risk I have to be comfortable taking. Of course all the names are changed and specific locations are carefully hidden, but the possibility of a bad guy finding my blog is there. I've spent a lot of time thinking about this and my take even more precautions as I continue to write.

Happy Birthday Robert Duvall! (Someday I should write about all the reasons he's awesome!)

Goodbye Harrison!

Dear Harrison,

You were the best car. You really really were. You were the first car that belonged totally to me. The first time I saw you I fell in love with your sleek red sides and short fat butt of a trunk. You weren't to short and you weren't too long. (This is important, more important than you might think for short girls who aren't so great at backing up.) You had so much room on your back bumper for all the bumper stickers I could ever want to put on you.

My first tags gave you your name: 24 HF 12. I loved those tags. They pleased each of my OCD tendencies; even numbers, a good number letter pattern, easy division problem and the initials of the best actor in the history of the world. Harrison Ford. I'll never forget anxiously waiting in line at the DMV for your tags, wondering what number and letter sequence you would be. When they plopped down the tags in front of me, I couldn't believe it. We were meant to be.

I remember the time Dad and to replace a bunch of parts on you and I came home to find you all taken apart on the shop floor! Dad did such a great job of putting you back together and keeping you running well for all those MA VT years!

You took me back and forth from MA to VT. You spent entire summers on the Cape. During one, you drove me all the way into the heart of Maine and back again, same day. We made lots of trips back and forth to the Cape (first serious boyfriend) and later back and forth from Bennington to North Adams (second serious boyfriend.)

Harrison, you drove me from my old life in MA to my new life in NM. You were the wheels for the best rode trip ever. (All of you reading, if you ever get the chance to drive across the country with your Mum and your plant, do it. You will never regret it.) You took us across the border with Canada (numerous times, not a lot of good signage.) Past the wine groves in PA, past the Brooks and Dunn gear bus in Ohio, across the border between IL and Mo (again numerous times, because for one state the border is the river and the for the other it was a random line on the road.) Down across OK and Texas where we encountered the biggest cross (in the world?) Finally, into NM and to La Pasa. Once you got here, I didn't have to drive you much. It was nice to work and live in the same area. Out here we went all the way to Arizona and all the way to Wyoming.

Throughout these years, you have jump started all sort of cars that were bigger (Ford Explorer) and more expensive (Mercedes.) Remember that time we used the tow cables that Dad bought us that we thought we would never use to pull a two wheel drive truck out of a muddy ditch?! The best part was that I did all the hooking up and directing in a mini skirt and heels! The New Mexican boys that didn't know how do this (or drive a stick!) were very impressed with the little white girl from the Northeast!

You've always taken good care of me and all the friends and family you've encountered along the way. I was sad when the first car dealership offered only 500 for you, sadder when the second didn't even say what they would give us and even sadder when the third (and final! more on that later) dealership offered 250. I knew that you were worth far more, but we worried that because you had a selvage title, no one else would be able to see that.

Craigslist proved us wrong. Tonight you were sold to a very nice guy that is a student by day and a pest control person by night for way more than the amounts mentioned previously. He wanted you because you would get better gas mileage than his Jeep. As I did the last minute check to make sure all my personal things were taken out of you, I took one long last look. You were a great car.

Love,

Ms. Knitter!