A few weeks ago, I was shopping in Guthrie, Oklahoma with some friends. Guthrie is a small town just north of Oklahoma City. It has LOTS of flea markets in old brick buildings and an awesome Goodwill, where I always find something fabulous.
While purchasing an Italian Soda at a little coffee shop, I noticed some chocolate hearts by the register. They caught my attention because when I was little, probably first or second grade, my mom had given me one exactly like that and I had never seen one before or since. That morning, my mom had surprised us with a little treat for Valentine's day. A red-foil wrapped chocolate heard on a stick like a sucker. It was such a nice surprise before school and I wanted to save it for my lunch or snack so I put it in my backpack and skipped down to the bus stop. My bus stop was the worst place on earth. It was lonely. Just myself and my brother at the bottom of a hill next to a highway. We were always the last ones picked up. In the winter, the wind was so cold that we had to huddle together for warmth. I do not remember if it was cold that February morning, but I know that I got on the bus as always. When I got to school, I looked around for my chocolate heart and realized that it wasn't in my coat pocket or my backpack. Sadly, I realized that I must've left it at home. When I got home, I searched everywhere and could not find it. Did I lose it on the bus? A week or two went by and one day, as I was crossing in front of the yellow crossing arm to get on the bus, I looked down at the middle of the highway. Beside the long yellow stripe in the middle of the pavement, was the foil heart. Smashed to smithereens, embedded in the concrete. The chocolate had melted away and it was just a silver Rorschach test with nothing recognizable except to me. From then on, I looked for the blemish on the highway whenever I got on the bus and it was still there for years. I had forgotten all about that little chocolate heart until I saw it in the store just after Valentine's day last month.
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Have you ever watched a movie or show that delved into the idea of an alternate universe?
One of my favorite movies about alternate realities is the movie Coherence. It has a largely unknown cast, and you don't realize what is happening until pretty far into the film. I won't give it away, but this is a fantastic movie that you might need to watch more than once to grasp. The sci-fi show Fringe eventually evolved into a tangle of alternate realities. In season 2, the existence of a parallel universe becomes the obvious source of 'occurrences' which is plagued by singularities occurring at weakened points of the fabric between worlds; over there, scientists have developed an amber-like substance that isolates these singularities as well as any innocent people caught in the area on its release. Sliding Doors is a movie with Gweneth Paltrow. The film shows two possibilities for her life happening simultaneously. In one reality she misses a train and winds up at home where she discovers her husband having an affair. In the other reality, she makes it on the train and never finds out about her husband. Family Man with Nicholas Cage is one of my favorite Christmas movies. In the film, he wakes up one Christmas morning with a wife and kids in the suburbs. In the previous reality, he had been a powerful business man in NYC. The new Cloverfield Paradox movie on Netflix. The main characters are orbiting the planet which is on the brink of war as scientists test a device to solve an energy crisis, and end up face-to-face with a dark alternate reality. They also find a woman entwined with wires behind a bulkhead of the station and they learn she worked in an identical Cloverfield Station in another dimension. 1Q84 is a novel that I listened to last year by Haruki Murakami. At one point, a character argues against the existence of a parallel world, but the two main characters in 1Q84 (Q=”a world that bears a question”) are absolutely convinced that they live not in a parallel world but in a replica one, where they do not want to be. The world we had is gone, and all we have now is a simulacrum, a fake, of the world we once had. “At some point in time,” a character muses, “the world I knew either vanished or withdrew, and another world came to take its place.“ Sometimes I wonder what my life would be like in a parallel universe. Would I be the same person? What if I had never gone to meet that guy who worked at a gas station that my mom said was so 'cool'? I would've never met Jeremy. If I would not have gone on a blind date with another guy that my step-mom set me up with, I would've never called Jeremy afterward to tell him how horrible it was and we would've never had our first date. (Our first date was dinner at Babe's and the movie Napoleon Dynamite). In a parallel universe, who knows what my life would look like or if I would be the same person, or some other 'alternate' version of myself. I don't know if my decisions would've let me to the same conclusions ultimately or if I would've gone down another path altogether. I guess I will never know, but it it fun to think about and I definitely enjoy books, shows and movies that delve into this idea. I really like working with 5th and 6th graders. They 'get' my sense of humor much more than my little baby kindergarteners ever did....(technically, these are the same kids I had in kindergarten, now they are just older and with slightly more refined sense of humors).
Always when I give instructions, I model what to do, I walk to the material and point it out and I say loud and clear where to put the project when finished. I also write it on the board, underline and circle the really important things. I try to keep the instructions simple. Put your name on the FRONT. Color the frame BEFORE you cut it out. Put it in the clip OR the drying rack when you are finished. The first day of art I show everyone where to get a fresh pencil if their lead breaks, I give them a tour of the room and show them where to find paper towels, kleenexes, rulers, crayons, paper pal, glue bottles, dry erase boards, origami paper and trash cans. I also go over every procedure imaginable and I try not to move stuff unless it is a special case and we need that stuff on the table for the day. Always at about this point in the year, I start to lose my mind. 85 times a day, someone asks: "where do I put this?" They ask: "where's the pencils?" They ask: "where's a kleenex?" 85 times, or more, I tell them that pencils can be found at the art supply store at the back of the room. Origami paper can be found in the activity cart. I get it that kids forget. They don't have art every day....only every other day....but for pete's sake, it is a small room. There are only about 2 places those things could be found! And I really want to have the energy to help them if they sincerely need my help. I am a pretty patient person, but I can only say the same things over and over and over and over and over that I start to lose it just a little bit. I feel like I am always on repeat! Yesterday, by 6th hour I was starting to feel like a broken record. I kept skipping between the same responses over and over. Asking, 'is your name on that?' Saying 'Put it in the drying rack.' I told a class that I needed to make a cardboard cutout of myself. It would have a voice box with preprogrammed responses to these questions and statements. I could keep a remote control in my pocket and if they asked the cut out, then I could hit a button and the correct response would use my voice to tell them, while I could be working one-on-one helping someone with their drawing or some other essential task. Most times, the student could just look around and figure it out or ask a buddy, but they ask me. I try to remain calm and repeat myself again and again and again and again. Creatively, I used a picture from 'lunch with a teacher' to make a mini cardboard cut out...the kids were amused...and it helped them remember the answers to the questions. Now if someone could just invent me a programable voice box with a remote control, I'd be all set. Every day I wake up before my alarm. Sometimes it is more than 2 hours before my alarm. If I can't shut off my brain, I listen to an audio book to help me doze back off or at least stay in bed until it is time to get up. Every day I drink the coffee that my husband lovingly prepares. Each night, I watch as he fills up the coffee pot, grinds the beans and sets the timer so that we will both have coffee in the morning. Every day I eat breakfast in the little 'breakfast nook' room in our house. The room has lots of windows and it my favorite place to check the weather and listen to birds if the windows are open. Every day I enjoy my morning commute. Sometimes I listen to an audio book, sometimes I listen to sirius satellite radio. Sometimes I go through town, but usually I take the interstate. Every day I get to work by 7:00. Some days it is 6:45, some days it is 7:10, but it is usually around 7:00. I like to park in the same spot, along the front row. If I am running late, all of those spots are gone. If I am early, I am the first one and I enter the school in the dark. Every day I unlock my door while juggling 2 or more insulated beverage cups. This is not easy and sometimes I spill my coffee trying to get in. I have learned to not fill up my coffee cup as full so that I don't spill burning hot liquid all over my hands/clothes. Usually I have my hands full of supplies, so that doesn't help. Every day I enjoy the first few minutes in my classroom alone, before the early morning group swoops in to 'help'. I usually tackle the jobs that I forgot or did not have time to do from the day before. I always have a long to-do list which includes turning on my little lamps, unstacking the chairs, sharpening pencils, and passing out supplies/sketchbooks. Every day I try to go to the bathroom before first hour. Sometimes I do not have time to go again until 10:50. Every day I each lunch alone. If I eat lunch at all. I scarf down a yogurt and spend the short break setting up for the afternoon classes, dashing down the hall to the bathroom. I also use this time to cut paper and prep supplies. Every day I get a break at 2:00. Sometimes my feet hurt so bad that all I can do is sit down, putting off the prep/grading/clean up for a few minutes. Teaching 6 classes a day is not joke. It is exhausting. Most days, I have students working in my room during my 'break' because that is Cardinal time and they are trying to get caught up on a project that they are behind on. Every day I talk to about 3 adults if I am lucky. With a 2 minute passing period, I just don't have the good fortune to talk to many adults unless I make point to corner them and force them to interact with me. Every day I talk to an average of 155-200 students. I see/interact and instruct 155+ in my classroom each day. In two days, I teach/talk to and interact with about 325 students. Every day I leave school exhausted. Sometimes I stay late at school and prep stuff, but often I go home and lay down for an hour just to enjoy the silence. Every day I look forward to my husband getting home around 5:15. Every day I enjoy spending the evening hanging out, watching TV, cooking dinner, going out to dinner or running errands. Every day I go to bed around 9:30. Sometimes I stay up and read until after 10. Other days I fall asleep at 8:30. This photo was from the full moon on March 1st--2nd. This is part of my morning commute, and I thought the moon looked enormous next to the water tower in the sky.
I am big on lists.
I make a list at home for groceries, chores and random things that just need to get done. Partially as a reminder to my husband who takes no notice of things unless I literally spell it out for him and partially because I enjoy crossing things off the list. I like to know that something is done. I like to see that I have confirmed that it is done when I have crossed it off. Most of the time, the to-do list has no value to anyone but me. The things that I find 'very' important, are probably not even worthy of going on someone else's list. Not even a blip on their radar. I do not like to procrastinate, I like to get the thing done and know that it is done and then I can relax. There is always a point in the school year when the to-do list is so long that as quickly as I can cross one thing off, three things take its place. There is always another point in the school year, when the days are winding down and all the plans are made. The to-do list is actually shorter because I planned ahead, anticipating the to-do lists in the future and not wanting to procrastinate, already did all of the things. This window of time is always short, but I enjoy it immensely. I'm not there yet, but I am looking forward to the 'down hill' slide. The to-do list at the end of all of the other to-do lists. Yesterday I posted about how messy my closet is....I worked on it for a while after school. You can't tell that I have made much progress, but I actually have and I this is how it looks now: I'I like lists. I like labels. The problem is that I don't always have the time or energy to label everything as neatly as I would like. The other day, a student was in my classroom and she said, "Mrs. L* is way more organized than you." ME: "Why? What makes you say that?" STUDENT: "She has a bullet journal. I've seen it. It is amazing." ME: "A bullet journal? I don't need a bullet journal, I keep lists. Why do you think I am not organized?" STUDENT: "Have you seen your closet over there? It is a mess." ME: "Just because it looks like it is a mess, doesn't mean that it is. I know where everything is, doesn't that make me organized? And besides, Mrs. L. doesn't teach art. She doesn't need all of the 'junk' that I need for projects and stuff." STUDENT: "Mrs. Mitchell, didn't you say that we have to all fit in the closet in an intruder drill? How would we all fit, you can't even see the floor in there right now?" ME: "You might have a point, perhaps I do need to get in there and clean some stuff out." If you need me, I will be decluttering my room and closet before spring has officially sprung. *Ms. L's name has been changed for her privacy. ;-)
Nearly every morning, a small group of students make their way into the art room before the breakfast bell.
It is for a short time, after they have gotten off the bus, in which they are hoping to avoid sitting in the gym for 10-15 minutes before the breakfast bell rings. Sometimes I let them play albums on my record player and we dance around. Other times, I have jobs ready for them like sharpening pencils, unstacking chairs, cutting out circles of cardboard, or passing out papers. In years past, I have dreaded this group because they either haven't been helpful or it is more work to 'watch' them and it is hard to get stuff prepped and ready for the day when they are in there. But every year, a little group forms....most of them ride different buses and are not in the same class. They just gravitate towards my room and drop their backpacks and announce that they just cannot go to the gym. They simply must wander slowly around the room, looking at everything, asking questions, and telling me about their parents, siblings, church, and anything that pops into their minds. In a way, they get the inside scoop. They see the 'behind' the scenes work that goes into prepping, writing stuff on the board, and creating examples for the project. Sometimes I get their input, asking what they think about different things I am considering for the day, and getting suggestions for the sketchbook prompt and other things that need to be decided. Last Friday, the intercom beeped. We all froze. "Hello?!" "Yes." I repeated a few times. No response. "Lord. Is that you?" I said, knowing that no one was listening behind the machine. A 5th grade girl and I burst into hysterical laughter. She got my 'joke' and I told her that I'd always wanted to do that. We belly laughed at the absurdity and the silliness of the whole thing and now it is our 'inside joke'. We have a few other inside jokes, she asked me once where I had gotten my gold handled scissors and I told her they were a gift from the city. I love my little 'morning' group. They make me laugh and cheer me up each day and I am thankful. When I first became a teacher, I had a rough schedule. Each day, I taught a high school art appreciation class. After first block, I travelled to either the kindergarten building or another, farther away elementary school. I had K-2 art classes, lunch duties and since it was my first year, I had to prep everything from scratch.
The high school was equipped with college level text books which weren't practical as there was only about 25 for two classes of 28 to share. So most of the information had to be delivered through lecture. At the time, I was only 23, and some of my students were 18 and they could smell my inexperience and nerves as I stumbled around mispronouncing Italian artists' names and fumbling to answer random questions designed to disarm and confuse me. There were many things to prepare as I had none of the resources created by the art teacher before me. There were no slide shows, tests, study guides or anything. I had to cobble together the daily instruction based on my college experience and resources. I also had to turn in copy requests well in advance to a building I had vacated by 9:20 each day. I tried to make the most of it, by arriving to the high school by 6:30 most mornings (class started at 7:20). That gave me time to look over my notes for the day and make sure that everything was in order. I also stayed until 5:00 each evening so that I could prep supplies for buildings that I was only in every other day. I shared all three of my art rooms so nothing could be left out and everything had to be put away for the other teachers to use when they had classes in that space. I was so excited to be a teacher, that I didn't realize how hard my first job truly was. I was grateful for a wonderful mentor who supported me and helped me along the way. When my position changed and year and a half later, I was relieved. Only two buildings, MORE kindergarten classes and less sharing rooms. Third grade was added to my plate, but I didn't have to go to the high school for first block anymore. I am still really grateful for the taste of teaching high school. It was hard. It was challenging, but it was really good. I had made relationships with some of my high school students that still exist to this day. Some of the students that I taught were 15 or 16 at the time, are now in their mid-twenties and participate in my book club, I see them on Facebook posting about the same concerts I am heading to, a few of them are teachers in my school district and they are wonderful adults who still have fond memories of my class. One of my former students just graduated law school and she asked ME to write her a letter of recommendation for the BAR exam. At a recent PD day at school, I caught up with one of those former students. We were both in the stop motion class, which was taught by her husband. How funny. And so ironic. I had led my high school art appreciation class through a stop motion project when she was a sophomore or jr. and she told me that she has wonderful memories from that class and that project. I have fond memories of that project too. The students were engaged, working in small groups to make short films with iSight cameras on giant mac computers using modeling clay and wire and construction paper sets they had designed themselves. In 2015, I had set a goal to read 20 books. I actually read 25.
In 2016, I set a goal to read 30 books and I actually read 38. In 2017, my goal was to read 40 books and I actually read 41. This year, my goal is to read 45 books, but I'd truly like to read 50. In order to accomplish this goal, I am reading three books right now. One book is for my book club and I have it in my purse. It is a small paperback and I haven't read very much of it just yet. I actually started the second book last year but never finished it. It is called The Warmth of Other Suns by Isabel Wilkerson. It is massive. Not an easy one to carry around, so it sits on my bedside table and I read it before falling asleep. The third book I am about halfway through is an audiobook. I have a tendency to wake up SUPER early and sometimes having an audio book helps me fall back to sleep or at least stay in bed for a while in the early morning hours. The movie for this book recently premiered, it is called Red Sparrow by Jason Mathews. The movie features Jennifer Lawrence as Dominika Egorova the Russian intelligence officer, which is easy to picture in my mind. I had a little trouble getting into the book the first chapter, but at the end of each chapter there is a recipe for food that mentioned in the chapter, and I really like that. Also, Dominika can see auras around people, which helps her judge their character, which is pretty cool. I've read 11 books so far this year, so I am about 4 books ahead of schedule. I'm hoping to finish Red Sparrow this week, and Warmth of Other Suns by the end of next week. Do you have any suggestions for books that I should include on my reading list this year? I need about 30 more ideas! My husband and I recently got a Red Card. If you haven't heard about this card, it is really helpful if you like to go see a lot of movies at the theater. It is a very expensive habit to go to the movies often, so we don't go as much as I would like. With the red card, you pay $10 a month and you can see as many movies as you want.
The problem with that, is the Joplin movie theater has majorly improved its popcorn game. Seriously. The popcorn has gotten so good lately, that I am going to write an entire post about it. I have also considered running by the movie theater just to get a tub to take home. Last Saturday, we went to see Annihilation. The movie was okay. Maybe a renter. But watching the movie with that giant tub of hot buttery popcorn made the experience totally unforgettable. My mouth is watering thinking about the yumminess of the popcorn. It isn't too salty, and we asked for layered butter. OMG. So good. I also had a giant cup of icy coca cola to wash it down. I don't drink soda very often, so when I do, I really enjoy every bit of it. The fizzy, sweet, sugary rush and the salty, crunchy, buttery popcorn, it was like the best treat ever. |
Mrs. Mitchell
This is my 'slice of life' blog. Archives
March 2020
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