So I've Been Thinking...

...and if you know me, thinking is never a short-term process.

(halted while I go do the dishes and further ferment these thoughts). On a related note: I don't mind doing dishes - the reason I put them off till Midnight on a work night (given that I called off work this evening because of a sore throat and slept half the day, I'm not quite tired yet anyway!) is because I hate the back aches that come from slouching over our not-quite-tall-enough sink. Sometimes being tall sucks.

Right, but back to the thinking. I've been reading more than I had before Christmas, given that it's midwinter and I've been calling off sick a lot (yet another issue that needs to be addressed, but will probably be put off till I get my taxes done and see if I'm getting anything back to pay the doctor), and that I got as a Christmas present a wonderful, magical gift card to Half-Price Books, which makes good on its name's promise with a great variety of fun stuff.

So in the last few weeks I've consumed a book on school bullying, a bestselling journalist's exploration of the working-class life, and a selection of essays by New York Times journalists about the class divide in modern America. (I link to Amazon, because it has pictures and reviews. These should be available in your local library system if you'd like to find them for yourself). I'm now starting another poverty-related book: The Working Poor: Invisible in America by David K. Shippler.

Aside from the bullying book, which I picked up because I'm one of the survivors of school bullying, these books are variations on a theme which has starred heavily in my experiences, especially since I started my current job. The issues of class and income in our country are ones I have long been aware of in some form or another; they influenced how I was raised and how I currently live. And sometimes, they make me feel really uncomfortable, depressed, or just plain mad.

Poverty is a tricky thing to define but in this country there is little argument that poverty describes a pretty big group. Dictionaries say things like "Lack of the means of providing material needs or comforts" (American Heritage), "Want or scarcity of means of subsistence" (Webster's International, 2nd ed). I like the third definition: "The state of one who lacks a usual or socially acceptable amount of money or material possessions." (Webster's Collegiate). Poverty in this country holds that connotation - of someone who can't afford what the "rest of us" desire. A lot of the "poor" that I know are quite happy where they are, including my father who despite occasional sighs over the availability of funds to pay the gov't their due (in land taxes and the like) seems rather content to chase turkeys around the yard and dig up potatoes with his girlfriend. Is he "poor"? Yes. Is he lacking in love, housing, or food? No!

I have no doubt I'll never be rich in the traditional sense of the word. I'm too far in debt; even if I got a better job tomorrow, worked my way up to a decent middle-manager position with great benefits, won enough on a lotto ticket to pay off my debts and continued to save for the rest of my life, I wouldn't be rich. And so I fall firmly into the lower class at the moment, with vague hopes of becoming lower-middle and a homeowner in some far-distant future. I figure I'll be rich in other ways, with laughter and friends and loving family and a great-looking veggie garden. But even if I make all my homesteading dreams come true, I'll still be "Poor", which strikes me as very odd, and a very undesirable label. And from this vantage point, the books I'm reading ring very, very true, and bring up a lot of food for thought about why I'm so bothered by poverty and class-ism.

The books say things like this:

"Breaking away and moving a comfortable distance from poverty seems to require a perfect lineup of favorable conditions. A set of skills, a good starting wage, and a job with the likelihood of promotion are prerequisites. But so are clarity of purpose, courageous self-esteem, a lack of substantial debt, the freedom from illness or addiction, a functional family, a network of upstanding friends, and the right help from private or governmental agencies. Any gap in that array is an entry point for trouble, because being poor means being unprotected... With no cushion of money, no training in the ways of the wider world, and too little defense against the threats and temptations of decaying communities, a poor man or woman gets sacked again and again - buffeted and bruised and defeated. When an exception breaks this cycle of failure, it is called the fulfillment of the American Dream." (The American Myth, as the author later calls it).
The Working Poor: Invisible in America. Shippler, David K. (New York: Vintage, 2005), p5.

After some personal observations this week that brought reality sharply home on the heels of having read all this scholarly discourse, I wondered what we can do (and more specifically what I can do) to alleviate the problems we're seeing. If there are so many widely-read books out there about poverty and class issues, why are there so few widely-promoted organizations devoted to fixing them? If so many people struggle in poverty every day, why aren't more of them working -together- to ease the struggle? And a question for the politicians: if the struggle with money is such a serious problem that the President is now admitting that the so-called middle class in America has been struggling since before the recession, why is consideration of this growing class of between-the-cracks Americans not higher on the list of things to look at when passing legislation?

Readers of this blog know me as a huge proponent of education - something that would alleviate the skill deficits of many working poor, would improve self-esteem and (hopefully) add purpose to lives, and might even improve friend networks as students (both kids and adults) meet teachers and workers who would support them instead of dragging them down. However, teaching a person won't guarantee them a job (that's the economy's problem). It won't provide the help they need from the gov't or private charities (volunteering is a good option, but not the only one!), and it won't set a better starting wage or give the option of advancement. And for the middle class, it's hard to say that education would have helped them avoid low-interest variable rate mortgages, overspending on brand-name "necessities" and chasing that terrible cultural belief that You are defined by Your Stuff. Education may teach you how to pursue a better life, but it won't guarantee you'll get there or even that you'll be immune to people who prey on insecurity to sell goods. A lot of highly-educated families are now paying the price of keeping up with the Joneses.

Then there's the question of whether it's even possible to eradicate poverty and class, and if so, whether it's a desirable option. Poverty provides our economy with cheap unskilled labor, which in return provides the consumer with cheap goods and services, which creates an upward cycle of saving and spending for both company and individual. The only ones who fail to benefit in this upward cycle are the working poor who eventually disappear into the shadows of their employers' skyscrapers. If they did benefit, eventually someone else would have to replace them at the bottom. We can't pay everyone in our society $14/hr (what a study in Nickel and Dimed quotes as a "living wage"). If we did (and if companies actually dealt with it and didn't immediately make the problem worse by outsourcing their factories to China and thus removing the jobs entirely from our market), the prices of goods and services would rise immensely to make up for the new "wealth" pouring into the hands of the poor, as well as the increased cost burden on business... and we'd be back to square 1, only with inflation to boot. In economic terms, in order to keep capitalism afloat, someone somewhere has to lose.

Some people go willingly into this sacrifice. They don't mind the long hours, the tedious and often body-breaking labor, the low pay. They have other loves - stargazing, their kids, their tiny gardens. Others hate it but have no escape and still others willingly try their best to break free only to be beaten back down. But the ones who choose to live a quiet, frugal lifestyle are never thanked; the ones who attempt and fail to rise are rarely comforted. I've always wondered why the mantra that "hard work will get you somewhere" is so rarely confronted and so often upheld as the absolute Truth in this place where hard work is as likely to turn around and bite you as it is to lift you into the executive's Comfy Chair. David Shippler provided some food for thought on this one, as well:

"...the American Myth also provides a means of laying blame. In the Puritan legacy, hard work is not merely practical but also moral; its absence suggests an ethical lapse. A harsh logic dictates a hard judgment: If a person's diligent work leads to prosperity, if work is a moral virtue, and if anyone in the society can attain prosperity through work, then the failure to do so is a fall from righteousness."

I've seen that attitude at work; it prevails in comments online when I or someone else offers the information that they can't afford this or that, it shows itself when a co-worker sheepishly admits they shop at a thrift store and then hastens to add that it's only for play clothes for the kids - as if wanting to save money is the same as not having any to spend.

Then again there's the other side, the anarcho-socialist railing against The Man that riles up the traditionalists and at first glance makes sense to a lot of disillusioned youth - that poverty is not anyone's fault but that the poor are victims: of corporations, the government, the rich and all their bad influences. I don't like that reasoning, either. It excuses the poor for their bad decisions because most (but not all) decisions can be traced to a lack of options or a lack of education - and therefore it is the system's fault that people end up poor, drug-addicted and in gangs and it's the system's responsibility to get them out. A lot of people, especially a lot of borderline-poor people, use this as an excuse for why they do the things they do.

And I feel like if these attitudes don't change - if people continue to think that hard work is all that's separating a single mom on welfare from the suburbanite couple the next neighborhood over, or conversely that the suburbanites are somehow repressing the poor by supporting sweatshop labor to make their angora sweaters, we'll get nowhere in the discussion of how to alleviate poverty. And I do want to alleviate it. I think a lot of the reason I'm bothered by poverty is that I've seen the higher levels of it - places where my parents lived for a long time, where the term "paycheck to paycheck" doesn't just describe your work schedule but your life schedule - waiting for the money that barely covers the bills, worrying about missing a day or the car breaking down or the school taxes, scared of your dependence on things going just right, unable to gain security on your own and yet too far above the poverty line (by $10 or by $1000) to get help. That kind of balancing act, the fact that someone who is making enough to "get by" isn't really secure or happy at all, is what bothers me - that, and the fact that if you're in this group, you don't talk about it. It's a silent struggle, and admitting it is an exercise in shame, because of the poverty stigma and the worry that you really aren't good enough, after all.

Then there's abject poverty, which is in a class all its own. While the moderately poor and lower-middle classes have to worry every week about whether the next paycheck will be enough to keep a roof over their heads, the abject poor are worried about whether they can stay with their mothers or sisters much longer. They have the longest climb to food security, their own space to live, and for many of them, a regular job. They are the least educated and the most desperate, and they are the ones I most want to help, even though I'm still trying to help myself get steady. I feel like I'm part of a shipwreck, clinging to a board while the lifeboats sail away, and still trying to dive back into the water to pull more people up, even though it may cost me the board and make rescue that much more difficult. Having lifeboats help would be better still, but lifeboats are organizations of people, and they're not all thrilled about the risk of tipping the boat - they may not save someone unless the water is shallow or rescue is already imminent.

In reality, poverty is not an extreme of laziness or repression. It's a sliding scale between personal choices and poor support systems, and it will take a combination of societal help and personal responsibility (there's that big bad R word again!) to dig most people out of abject poverty. I want to be part of that societal safety net. I try to help myself first (personal responsibility!), because saying "no" can be the difference between sinking under the combined weight of hangers-on, and keeping a few afloat. I make sure the rent is paid before I give to charities; I make sure we have enough to eat before I offer food to the neighbors. But I'm also trying to lead by example. I want people to see that even though I am barely keeping my head above water, I can still hold out my hand. I want others to think about doing the same. I think that selfishness is a terrible sin when so many people in the worst circumstances can find it in themselves to be selfless. I think that community safety nets in the form of shared gardens, resource centers, and mentoring can really improve quality of life, even if they don't improve income levels, and I think that connecting someone to the health of their community in such a vital way as growing food together, cleaning up the neighborhood, or running programs for the kids is a measure of security, a hedge against dropping out and letting go.

After a lot of thought on this issue, I think that I'd really love to spend more of my time working on the problems of poverty - getting people away from their friends' tiny apartments and into a place where they can afford to take a day off work, fix a car, buy furniture, take night classes... even if we can't "solve" the poverty problem, I think it's our duty as human beings to help each other find security: food security, housing security, safety in their own homes and the knowledge that their kids aren't going to turn to drugs as the "only way" to reach their dreams of wealth. Poverty may always need to exist to provide room for wealth, but it shouldn't have to mean starvation in one of the most prosperous countries in the world. Poverty should be stability. It should be the knowledge that you are still important in the system and the gratitude of those who rely on your labor. It should be a chance to improve yourself, but the security of knowing that even if you spend the rest of your life where you are, you'll never go hungry.

Femininity

Got an impromptu morning off today when my client ended up taking longer than expected at the doctor. While I waited for them to call and say they were home (didn't happen), I checked out my usual morning news and blog posts, and found this:


It's time to Wear the Pants, via Feelin' Feminine.

Let's first get this straight: I appreciate the efforts of anyone who is trying to make the world better. And I think Feelin' Feminine is a cool blog with a cool idea. I don't even mind the religious aspects, because they're respectfully submitted as part of a whole feminine process, not as the end of the argument on why women should wear skirts. But this ad struck a nerve, and I had to respond with more than a comment which may not be posted (all due respect to their moderation - if they decide my comment is inflammatory, it's their decision, and that's why I've got my own blog).

This ad is bad. It's a very good ad, as far as ads go. It's terribly effective in selling the Dockers brand of pants as Pants for MEN. I just happen to disagree with their definition of manhood, and think the ad is doing more harm to a population that is already struggling with gender identity. See, as I commented on Feelin' Feminine, I don't think gender roles are what's ruining society. And this society is absolutely not genderless. I challenge the guys who came up with this ad concept to prove me wrong.

First I'd like to address the difference between sex and gender, in case there is any confusion. Males = male sexual features (penis, lack of breasts, more body hair), Females = female sexual features (breasts, vagina, curves). No more (although if you want to indulge in a day's worth of reading, check Wikipedia's list of possible chromosomal anomalies and their results). The sex you're born with, unless you have surgery, is the sex you stay your whole life. Gender, which doesn't even come into play until after birth, is a LOT more fluid. This is why there's a difference between transsexuals (who have gender reassignment surgery) and transgenders, who fill the "opposite" gender role of their sex. Gender is the entire package - not only what bits you have in your pants (or skirt), but how you feel about those bits and how you fit into society's expectation of what people with your kind of bits are supposed to be doing. And that's where gender roles come in.

Historically, men and women have occupied a sort of dichotomy when it comes to gender roles - the expectation of what they should do in society. In a patriarchal group, males were providers for the family and ran the gov't (whether it was a tribal council or a feudal castle) while females kept the home and children clean, organized and well fed. Some societies were matriarchal, where women ran things and the men took a stronger provider role in the woods and gardens. Either way, western gender roles are historically seen as pretty rigid. Females didn't attend male-only wars and ceremonies, and men didn't act as midwives. The exceptions to this rule seem to have been select North American native groups who provided a third, "mixed" role for either men or women who were seen as embodying multiple genders (and in some cases, multiple spirits of multiple sexes in the same body). There is no single term for these groups' identifications of what we might call transgendered or "other-gendered" people, although anthropology likes the term "berdache". These people were usually seen as a natural part of a gender spectrum, rather than a bridge across a gender dichotomy, and in some cases were revered as closer to the creators because of their dual nature (Mother Earth/Father Sky).

Because gender roles have not had a single definition throughout history, but are dependent on culture, tradition, and values which have changed through the years, it's illogical to assume that the "normal" roles we assign (think 50's sitcom families) are the only appropriate gender roles, or even the ones best suited to us. People have a tendency to oversimplify the past. We would like to think that everyone during a certain time period fit the stereotype we have of that period - that most of the Victorians were prim and proper, for example. As a matter of fact the ideals of the times were rarely met, as is the case even today. Even in Victorian-era England, ladies farted in public, swore, and occasionally pinned their skirts up while doing chores. Their primary expected gender role might have been that of the prim and retiring young débutante, but they filled other roles too - washerwoman, nursemaid, whore. Society can't thrive when it insists on filling one role too well, and the others not at all. And it would seem it falters equally when everyone insists on trying to fill every role.

Today there seems to be great fragmentation of gender roles, probably thanks in part to the feminist and suffragette movements. Women find themselves able to do work that was historically reserved for men as part of our armed forces, scientists, doctors, and lawyers, and are expected to fill the roles in those jobs just as well as men (or so the HR office insists). Still, we are being fed crap like this Dockers ad, which leaves us with the message that Men are somehow better at it all, and that women pushing into the traditional "world of men" is androgynizing (and therefore destroying) society. Logical failure: androgyny is not the right word for what's happened to our gender roles. Failure to balance is more like it. There are already plenty of people who hate these attitudes, so I won't go about systematically picking them apart here. Instead, let me point out a better source of blame for society's problems: responsibility.

Gender roles will always be fluid and one person will always fill many of them. Wife, sister, daughter, friend, co-worker, and teacher are just a few of my current roles. The important thing is that for every sister-role, the other sibling plays their role as well. What causes dysfunction is dropping the roles you said you'll play, and expecting someone else to fill a role regardless of their feelings toward said role. Relationships work best when roles are defined and filled, whether or not they are the stereotypical roles for the chosen sex. I am able to play the role of provider for my household just as well as my husband, and we are partners in paying the bills and cleaning the house. If one of us suddenly stopped showing up for work and asked the other one to take on the full burden of bill payment, just because it was the expected gender role to take, we'd be in trouble (not least because it's economically unfeasible to support a household on one paycheck these days). If my sister needs me for support after a hard break-up, I am expected to be responsible for my own 'sister' role and support her. When we fail to fill our roles, we are "bad" at them... so it's important to fill at least some of the roles expected of us (spouse, sibling, parent) - in any way we can.

But it's not important whether our fulfillment of that role is traditionally male, female, or something in between. What's important is that we do what we say we're going to. It's also important that we communicate our role expectations - to our friends, family and children. I'll admit there is a lot of gender confusion these days. The GLBTQ lobby has managed to open up discussion about gender roles. Feminists are doing the same thing from a different angle. Fundamental religious groups are growing ever louder in their demands for a return to "godly" ways and traditional roles. Kids are growing up in this wash of ideas, discussions and taboos, and lack the understanding or the guts to ask their parents "what roles am I expected to fill?". You can't simply tell children that they can be "anything they want" (read: fill any role they like), and then show them ads like this. It sends all kinds of mixed messages. So we need to make sure we answer that unspoken question.

We need to provide good role models through ourselves and our friends (if this is not possible, send your kids into responsible care and put your damn life in order already) so that they can see what we value and what roles we enjoy filling. We need to explain, if necessary, that playing with girl toys doesn't make you a girl (or even guarantee that you'll be familiar with your feminine side - how many boys "play" with Barbies by sending them to war and ripping off their heads?) and that mommy is perfectly capable of changing the oil in her car, even if someone else expects differently. We need to address traditional roles with our kids through discussion of media, play, and peer interaction, and then teach them skills to fill and accept a wide range of nontraditional roles as well. We need to tell our children that being "bad" has little to do with fitting into someone else's pigeonhole, and everything to do with avoiding responsibility for their own actions. I would care very little if my son wanted to wear bows in his hair. I would care a lot more if he lied to blame someone else for putting them there.

In some respects I agree with the ad. It is time to drop the complacency and DO SOMETHING. But why does it have to be men (and only the stereotypical, non-salad-eating, manly men at that?) who get to save the world?

Oh, and Happy New Year

Hope all is well with everyone who reads this. While I am still rather shaky in the belief that every day is a new day and the first day new year doesn't necessarily mean the rest of the year will follow suit, I did have a bad first day, and it didn't make me hopeful for the rest of the month.

I'm trying to start school again this semester, and we'll see how that goes. I'm also trying to keep my sanity in the face of the student loan companies... my forbearance is up in February, and if I don't get into 6 credits of classes by then, I'll have to start paying them back, something I'm not a in financial position to do.

I'm also stuck in the mid-December mindset of finishing presents and waiting for Christmas. We haven't had Christmas with my family yet due to work, weather and my little sister's inconvenient bout with the flu. My mom's presents are sitting in a bag next to the computer, wrapped and neatly labeled. The year hasn't had closure not only in the sense that I haven't done Christmas the way I expected to, but in a lot of other unfinished projects and goals yet unreached. Maybe this year will be better than the last...

I'm So Sick of...

...people blaming the schools for every problem the educational system has.

Michigan Teaching School Tries Something New". Great article from NPR. I will not dispute that most teaching programs SUCK. Even my program at a highly-recommended teaching college (which used to be a Normal School where girls were educated to become teachers) wasn't that great. There was too much focus on writing the perfect lesson plan (in perfect arbitrary formatting) and too little focus on working out problems. We were encouraged to "reflect" on our lessons but often those reflections were unguided "I think I did this wrong, this theory might have helped" statements; they were something a third-grader could have written and we never had the opportunity to teach the same lesson more than once, to see if our reflection and problem-solving would have actually helped. The result, at least for me, was a sense that it didn't actually matter whether or not you could learn from your mistakes and grow as an educator - it mattered that you got it "mostly right" the first time around, and the reflection on your lesson's success was a very small percentage of your grade, even during student teaching (we got 3 student teaching experiences, starting with simple observation and teaching of one lesson and moving up to a full-on teaching experience under a mentor teacher).

Still, it irks me that the comments on the article shove so much blame onto the teaching schools and the teachers for the failure of our education system (which I blame for the failure of half a dozen other systems, but that's a different rant). I don't think I've ever seen a front-page mainstream media article about a school board screwup, and superintendents taking huge pay raises gets regional coverage at best. I'm pretty sure if I told you the name of the previous principal at my high school, who was removed from his job for being skeevy (the details were kept -very- quiet, but there were allegations of sexual harassment), and then applied for (and GOT) the superintendent position for the district, you'd probably never recognize it. It barely merited an announcement in the tiny local paper. But of course, we don't blame the people in charge.

Never mind that the policies set by school boards and superintendents, by state boards of education and federal laws like No Child Left Behind are what inform every teaching school in the United States and are the standard by which teachers are told they will be judged. Never mind that Race To the Top, the latest in a series of ill-fitting educational reforms put forth by our legislators, looks more like a cutthroat, backstabbing, brown-nosing contest for recognition of "great" school leadership than a measure intended to improve the education of our children. Never mind that the White House is actually taking measures to educate a few groups of schoolchildren on the wonders of gardening (and it seems pretty successful)... the media isn't covering THAT. (NPR did, and I think Mother Earth News ran a blurb. Hardly the kind of coverage that inner-city kids successfully being introduced to healthy diets deserves!).

And especially, never mind that most of America, coast to coast, will tell you that education doesn't really matter that much. Who are our heroes? Sports stars who got through college with a 2.5 GPA and scholarships paying them to entertain us. Entertainers, picked by television contests and record execs without regard to their attendance at an educational institution. (Juilliard will get you into a symphony orchestra, if you're lucky. It won't get you onto American Idol). Talk show hosts (see: Oprah) who tell us how to make perfect cookies using Pillsbury cut-outs and offer heart-rending abuse stories for us to gawk at, but rarely mention that we should spend time reading with our kids. When was the last time Oprah's Book Club read a children's book? They don't bother with telling us about the importance of education until they're washed-up and the only paying job they can get is speaking on NBC's "The More You Know" commercials.

No, of course our society doesn't have problems that contribute to the failure of education. Of course, if we simply force the schools to adapt to the needs of our kids with free breakfast for all, free lunch, lots of teaching to the test and finding that magic way of picking good teachers (I mentioned in a previous post (see "Most Likely to Succeed") that picking good teacher candidates is being done all wrong anyway), we'll magically improve test scores and all will be well. Of course if we cut extracurriculars in order to devote more time to Everyday Math (I can't tell you how much I hate that curriculum) and continue to allow school boards to build multi-million dollar football fields instead of funding new textbooks, we'll teach our children that we really value their education.

Honestly, at this rate I don't think the educational system deserves a penny, but I don't think it's entirely the system's fault. With all the other problems in the world, how exactly is our failure to teach our kids the right things (whatever you believe those to be) the fault of the schools? Parents can't figure out how involved to be (see: Refrigerator Mothers (often blamed for autism) and Helicopter Parents (which I'd almost call a backlash after the Fridge Mom reports)), teachers aren't getting paid enough to deal with the bullshit kids bring from home and the bullshit administrators dump on them, and our teacher education programs aren't exactly admitting the best and brightest (Google "Teacher candidate SAT scores"). But even with "better" teacher candidates, perfect parenting and better teacher pay, kids would still be hearing from all sides that school isn't worth it.*

What do we do in the face of this horrible opposition? Make school worth it. Don't expect the people most important in a child's life to lie about the value of their education. Getting somewhere in life, as any well-educated, highly-paid executive will tell you, is less about what you know and more about who you know. That's not to say that education is useless - it's certainly possible to become a Somebody if you study hard enough and solve a problem in a novel way which gets you the attention of other Somebodies. And education can improve quality of life in myriad ways, too - some of which have nothing to do with the supposed end result of school: getting a job and being a productive member of society. Education can improve health and diet, provide for better social interactions, contribute to global consciousness and encourage informed political activity (and not just in the "protests and sit-ins" kind of way). With a good education comes a better understanding of the world around us, and a better set of tools to tackle daily problems. We can tell our children this, and we can prove it to them despite our "failing" schools.

So yes, our curriculum needs to be changed, both in teacher prep and in primary schools. But at the same time our attitudes need to change. We need to help our children apply skills to the real world, instead of assuming they'll go on field trips to learn those things. We need to show them that learning about electricity can be useful when a light bulb burns out in their night light. That knowing how to round and multiply is useful when getting party supplies for 12 guests, or figuring out how many valentines they need for the class party. That division, fractions and percentages can make sales tax less of a surprise when they get to the register with those valentines, and can tell them how many cookies their classmates will get if they follow a recipe. That reading signs and directions can be the difference between embarrassment at calling for help and pride in doing it yourself. And that it doesn't matter whether you can shoot a basketball as well as Kobe Bryant if you can't read the contract they want you to sign. Maybe when our children realize what education can do for them, a better teacher will make a big difference. Until then, why do we expect the schools to enforce life skills lessons that the kids can't practice inside the classroom?

*Hell, I'd even tell them that. Learn all you like, but don't expect school to teach you everything you want to learn.

Weighing the Hogs

Teaching Reforms Should be Based on Research and Experience. (Californiaprogressreport.com)

This article may have been written in response to a California legislative move, but it's applicable to schools and school laws across the country. Marty Hittelman, president of the California Federation of Teachers, has his head on straight. He says, in a nutshell, that putting emphasis on testing isn't going to improve our schools.

"Anyone who has spent much time in the classroom will tell you that one day’s performance in not a valid indicator of a student’s mastery of his or her school year curriculum and growth."

I could have told you this. My first student teaching experience in my Junior year drove the point home with one amazing boy. He had some learning difficulties, which had not been diagnosed nor even caught (I suspect now that it was ADD) - he was in my mainstreamed classroom and they had -just- started talk of sending him for a few minutes of Title I reading instruction every day. He had also adopted the attitude that he didn't need school at the ripe old age of 9, and insisted that he was going to be a bricklayer like his dad (who worked 60-hour weeks and never seemed helpful with academics, yet would somehow have time to teach his son the trade). So he was a difficult case, and as a first-time student teacher I was frustrated by his lack of attention and disorganization - as was the classroom teacher. Still, when I wasn't presenting lessons I would hover in the back of the room where he sat - keeping an eye out for signs of distraction, prompting and prodding and pulling him along with the rest of the class. He got through a few math lessons that way and actually made good progress... but I was only there for a few months.

I didn't expect anyone to grow attached. I wasn't a great teacher; the lessons were messy and the kids were sometimes bored. Still, on the last day I went home with an armload of notes and cards - most of them hand-made by the kids during study time in between shushing and fits of giggles. I still have all of them but one in particular stands out. It was written by that boy who had already been labeled "trouble".

This is the note (click for an image):

"I had a fun time wall you were hear. you tout me math skille and ss, sin I learnde alot. eavn thou I fallad alot of your tests it was fun you were a verry verry verry nice teacher. Bye!"

Three sentences, from a child who had trouble writing one complete sentence when I started my placement. Even this child, one the system was struggling with, proved that he could learn (and enjoyed it!). And he did so not in one day or on one test but over a couple of months. On a standardized test, he would have been one more failure for the school to be embarrassed about, and there would be no evidence of his growth that year. Tests are great - when properly applied as continuous assessment of single topics. As a general picture of education, they suck.

I also found this to be both funny and sadly true:

"Any effort to close the achievement gap in our schools that does not address the conditions that children grow up in is doomed to failure. Schools can only do so much in the time that they work with students. Until this country closes the gaps in job opportunities with a livable wage, health care, and affordable housing, efforts for improvements in the schools will have limited success.

In addition, you can develop all the best tests in the world but if you don’t improve the conditions in the schools in which students and teachers operate in, the test scores will not improve either. As the famous farmer said, “Weighing my hog accurately doesn’t help it to grow heavier.”"

That 5th grade class lived in a low-income area in which most jobs were blue-collar or agricultural work. The housing in the area was mostly old farmhouses or the cheaply-built homes of the 40's and 50's. None of it was in great condition, a sign of both the area's poverty and the homeowners' lack of ability (or funds) to keep up with the maintenance. The school breakfast program was packed every morning. The computer lab ran old, donated computers that sometimes locked up, and the library was in need of new books. If kids were sick, parents missed work to take care of them... so kids came to school and spent the day in the nurse's office. In conditions like these, can we really expect students to increase their test performance based solely on curriculum changes (which at many schools probably wouldn't be supplemented with new materials)?

Oh, and speaking of low-income education - Race to the Top (link: PDF of the law) horrifies me. Some people are shouting for "underachieving" schools to be shut down, the entire staff fired and new people hired "to show that the district is working to improve the school" and be competitive for federal funding. HAH.

1. The "underachieving schools are often in low-income areas, serving minorities who may also be ELLs (english language learners), and are already understaffed, underfunded and overcrowded. You're going to fire everyone on the staff regardless of the fact that those are the people who can afford to work at the school, who love the school, and who know the school's problems inside and out, and replace them with the people who couldn't get hired at any of the other districts and have no idea what they're in for?

2. Last time I checked there wasn't exactly a waiting list to be hired for inner-city Chicago schools and the burnout rate among new teachers in stressful situations is really high. Do they honestly expect a couple of fresh-faced graduates are going to make a difference before they quit in two years?

3. What will these kids do while their school is shut down for a year because the district can't find a math teacher? Better yet, what will they do when the district hires a math teacher on an interim teaching certificate because they can't find someone "certified" and need the school open anyway? Some of the best teachers I know aren't qualified to teach (officially, anyway) but that doesn't mean that you should be shoving unprepared individuals into classrooms where the message is "Raise the scores, or find the door." That's just cruel, to both the teachers and the kids.

I'd rather They sat down with the current staff, discussed what they're seeing as problems (10:1 odds the teachers cite a rough neighborhood and a need for community resources as part of it!) and then work to fix the cause, not the symptom. Unfortunately, They don't do sense.

Holidays with Autism

Holidays with autistic children can be rough. Anyone who's taken their screaming child out of a crowded family dinner, or avoided one entirely, knows this.

For those of us who work with autism, or have a relative with the diagnosis, knowing how to help can save a holiday get-together. And if you live with a child with autism, being able to control or avoid the worrisome meltdowns will make your holidays a little more cheerful.

The first tip, of course, is to know your child. If he/she doesn't do crowds, don't force them to come along to a large gathering. Invite a few family members or friends over at a different time, or arrange child care (there are babysitters who have the skills and experience to care for your child, though they may be hard to find) so that you can enjoy your family gathering.

If your child is ok with family members but can't handle a whole evening, ensure a quiet and calming place for him/her to go. Remember not to leave your child unsupervised in a strange place (this goes for all kids, autism or no), but also remember that other family members are there to help - and if you are that other family member, don't hesitate to step in and sit with the child for a while. Parents need a break sometimes, and having a supportive family can be the best holiday gift.

Preparing a child for the holidays is also a great way to reduce meltdowns. Practice greetings and read stories (social stories or children's books) about the holiday. Discuss expected behavior with both the child and the relatives. If a child is touch sensitive, remind relatives in advance so Aunt Sarah doesn't attempt her infamous bear hug. If they enjoy certain kinds of touch, like tickling or tight squeezes, tell relatives this as well. Arriving early is a good idea. Prepare foods for your child in advance or give recipes to the cook. If your child likes new foods it's ok to introduce one or two but now is not the time to be pushing a plate of ham and peas at a child who eats only chicken nuggets.

Be sure to provide your child with something to do at the gathering, too. Many children with autism do not play by themselves and even though children seem to enjoy self-stimulating behavior (rocking, flicking, head-banging, staring, squinting, and a host of other behaviors), it may actually be a habit that they can not break and no longer enjoy. It's better to prompt them through a couple of games with lots of praise and favorite treats than to assume they are having "fun" on their own. Even a fidget toy is a better alternative than nothing.

Which brings us to gifts: sometimes, buying the right gift for a person with autism is awkward. If you're buying, ask for suggestions. Sometimes a family could use autism-related materials like special clothing, toys or sensory devices. Other times, they may just want clothing made out of materials that won't irritate the child's skin. As a relative, don't insist on buying a gift that the child can't enjoy because "it's what normal kids play with", and avoid gimmicks related to "fixing" autism - they don't work, and they're insulting. As a parent, you can make it easier by developing a list far in advance, and updating with appropriate clothing sizes and a developmental range for toys as the holidays approach. Children may not have the skills (attention span, fine motor, ability to take turns, etc) to enjoy a toy aimed at their typical peers, so choose based on a developmental level, rather than age. That's not to say you can't buy a game that the child will need to work at, but be mindful of the challenge. And be mindful too of the child's ability to open gifts - you may want to simply use gift bags, or expect adults to do the unwrapping.

Not all kids will enjoy or even manage family gatherings. Never feel guilty if you know your child can't handle the holidays the way your relatives wish he could, and do not apologize for your child. Simply work on it for next year, with small steps, including giving the relatives plenty of warning.

If you are a relative, your main goal for a happy and relaxing holiday should be to educate yourself. Don't expect a child with autism to be a perfect guest even if he is high-functioning and generally well-behaved at home. Ask the parents or caregivers about triggers - things that may set a child off. Do your best to reduce them or provide a space without them. Have parents teach you how to deal with problem behaviors, and inform other family members so that you present a united front (this is good advice anyway; kids love to play adults off each other in order to get away with bad behaviors). Make sure there is food that the child can eat, or ask the parents to provide it. Inform any children coming that the autistic child is not "stupid" or "bad", but simply learns differently, and needs more patience to play with. And remember that rule yourself.

Don't exclude a family member with autism, or his/her parents, because you think it will be a "headache" or "too much work". By doing so, you are doing more than hurting feelings. You are denying family members the ability to enjoy the holidays the same way you do, and denying yourself the opportunity to get to know your autistic relative a little better, and provide a wide support network to help him/her improve. No child can improve his or her behavior without support from adults; why neglect the child who needs the most support of all?

NJ Center for What?

NJ Think Tank "The Center for Modeling Optimal Outcomes, LLC", a primarily business-oriented group of smart guys, claims to have stumbled upon a link between a glycine-based stabilizer used in the US version of the MMR vaccine and autism spectrum disorders. Their shortened press release is so carefully worded it's like a goddamn journalistic minefield; they never actually commit to a link, and are careful to insist that this is explained in lay terms and is actually very very complicated (try me - I bet I'd understand!). The longer .pdf linked on their site explains more clearly that the proposed link is only there because someone's pulling a lot of correlations together; no research has been done that wasn't published by someone else, and some of it was shaky to begin with. I quote:

"Based on Wakefield’s* hypothesis involving the MMR vaccine as a possible factor in the cause of today’s iteration of autism (but not all of the disorders with ASD), [the company founder] decided to look carefully at the MMR vaccine as well as others.

...Since 1979 the MMR vaccine has contained hydrolyzed gelatin as a stabilizer. This fact may seem unrelated to the problem of autism unless the process of hydrolyzation is understood (i.e. concentration) and the fact that gelatin is a substance high in levels of glycine (approximately 21%).
In lay terms, the glycine is concentrated in this form of the gelatin, so presumably other kinds of gelatin have lower concentrations. Glycine seems to be related to glutamic acid (monosodium glutamate), which is a common food additive. I'm not sure exactly why the chemical makeup of glycine is thought to cause more problems than glutamate, because I'm not a biochemist; I think we can safely assume that since they are in the same family, it would make sense to investigate all of them.

Quote continues:
Is the addition of gelatin to the MMR vaccine in 1979 (US patent 4,147,722 of April 3, 1979) merely coincidental with the increase in the rate of autism soon thereafter? Has the addition of hydrolyzed gelatin to some chicken pox vaccines compounded the problem? The challenges for the medical research community are now clear! Do certain classes of cells absorb substances? If so, the entire science of toxicology will change. If the homeostasis of certain classes of cells associated with bodily functions are disrupted, could the outcome be autism[?]; i.e. the inability of some cells to absorb the critical substances necessary for the brain and
body to function normally? Can a substantial imbalance between glutamate - gelatin/glycine cause autism by slowing or stopping the ability of certain cells to absorb substances in the brain and elsewhere in the body?"
Note the bold - they're not even sure that disrupted homeostasis causes autism (or if it's even correlated, if I'm reading that right). This is yet another unfounded leap. I'm not bashing unfounded leaps - they got us things like the chicken pox vaccine and penicillin, and an uninformed outside observer sees things the educated among us may miss. Still, it's a leap of faith to trust this connection at this point - it'd be like claiming faith in the single steel wire they use to run a suspension bridge cable, before the cable or decking have been put in place. It might hold weight, but it's not well supported.

In fact, nowhere does the release state that The Center is sure of this connection or that it is a single cause of autism:
"Applying The Center’s model for homeostasis of the body’s substances uncovered a few startling facts. First, several imbalances/disruptions in bodily processes appeared to be variables that contribute to autism. It became obvious that these variables have to occur concurrently for a “perfect storm” to cause the disorder. Simply, there was no one cause behind autism."

Simply, the fact that there is no one cause means that even if the hydrolized gelatin in the MMR vaccine turns out to be one single trigger, we may spend decades searching for the next half-dozen links which cause this "perfect storm", and in the meantime, someone is going to be blowing the single link we have out of proportion. One blogger for Autism awareness has already taken it and run with the title "Vaccines Cause Autism!". Seriously? This kind of sensationalism is damaging to the community and especially to already-scared parents who are looking to blame anyone and anything they can on the sudden disappearance of the child they thought they had. Let it go, dude. Vaccines cause immunity. Some unknown inability to process the outside world and/or respond to it in reliable ways causes autism, and denying your child an immunity to a trio of very serious and very real diseases because of some shady circuitous reasoning is stupid at best and possibly inhumane.

*Wakefield's hypothesis has been relatively well trounced since it came out, and is unpopular among many autism caregivers and doctors because it has caused a hole in immunity to MMR, which opens a lot of innocent kids up to serious health risks - these diseases are not gone, folks. They're only rare in developed countries because we vaccinate. See the Wiki entry's "Recent Studies" list for more information.

What is the cost of living with Autism?

On my Google news feed, an article series popped up regarding Autism specialty schools in New Jersey.
This is the latest in the series, but all are linked if you're curious.

The school, named the Garden School, had to fight for state approval just to stay open, and with good reason - it costs $70-80,000 per year, per child for one-on-one ABA-based education. (For those who don't know, Applied Behavioral Analysis is the only study-proven behavioral intervention method for autism spectrum diagnoses, although half a dozen others are well recommended, and are often used in combination, especially when teachers aren't specifically trained in one method).

The article was friendly and had great pictures of the twins they followed, and the school seems to have been successful thus far but I had a shock when I got to the end. One anonymous commenter asked:

"And it costs the taxpayers exactly how much to spend a dozen years to teach one of these children to sweep a floor, or empty a garbage can, or even just to sit still for five minutes?

How many normal students could be put thru medical school for that same money?

Can't p**ss money away fast enough."

So, "blogbat999". Better question: How much does it save the taxpayers to educate these children in basic life skills now, instead of paying for lifelong (70+ years) care? Someone later mentioned that cost of education was "$864,000.00, plus transportation costs." I won't count the transportation costs, because they're a fact of life for everyone with a kid and they're built into any school's budget.

Regardless of the veracity of that number, I guarantee you 12-20 years of early intervention and ABA training will cost you far less than paying for the next 50 years of welfare, disability, and state-run group care homes. This is especially the case in states like PA where Act 62 promises to make regular insurance companies pay for wraparound services (what I do is covered under wraparound). For the money-oriented, that means that taxpayers will no longer be paying so much through MH/MR and state-sponsored insurance for these kids to get the care they need (or that more kids can get the same care as before, with less taxpayer funding per child). Instead, the private insurance companies, which are businesses which have pockets far deeper than our poor state, will pick up the slack and provide a certain amount of care. On the other hand, some families may end up with a co-pay or need to apply for Medicaid to cover the rest; we will see how well things actually work.

Run the numbers any way you like; early intervention and intensive childhood care pay off as a long term investment. This is especially true for less severe cases, where early intervention can lead to a child having a successful job and living outside the home on their own, paying taxes and bills into the system and generally being useful, instead of living with parents on disability pay or being shuffled to a group care home after their parents die - or worse, developing behaviors that can end lives . Ever heard "too little, too late"? It applies to autism very well. The less and later intensive, consistent care is given, the harder it is to change behaviors and make progress. There is no reason for any parent to suffer abuse at the hands of their child, no reason for any child to be hospitalized or jailed (and run up more bills for you loving taxpayers!) when they can be diagnosed early, treated early and improve before they get too big to control.

Note that the commenter, as usual, didn't specify what to do with the kids who are currently going to the school, either. Most of them can not be mainstreamed; they'd be put into special ed classrooms or, if they're lucky, "life skills" classrooms where they'll spend the next 12 years of their academic careers in understaffed classrooms with overworked aides and one teacher (vs the one-on-one the private school can offer), where their progress won't be tracked as cleanly, their needs won't be met as consistently and they'll often be shoved into mainstream classrooms long before they're actually ready, which will strain the special ed room even further as they push aides into the classrooms with these kids to deal with the "problems" that crop up. And do you think the schools, when faced with such an influx of children from these private institutions, will simply sit back and go "ok, we need to re-balance the budget"? In your dreams, guys. More special needs students means more school funding, which comes out of... oh, hey! Your pockets. You're paying for it either way, people.

But of course; it's all about the money NOW. Never mind that an $80,000 investment in your child's future isn't really that much when you consider we pay most sports stars more than that for 30 minutes of play time when some of them have fewer skills than the average autistic kid I work with, and you're paying THAT out of pocket too if you subscribe to cable or FIOS TV, buy tickets to the game, or pay taxes which fund new sports fields. The only difference is that taxes are money we can't choose what to do with; in this case I'd much rather my portion of the state's fat pie go toward education in all its forms than to paying for a new stadium. Wouldn't you?

P.S. I'd also like to note that I find it interesting that this person equates "normal" students with med school (see Temple Grandin, who worked herself through a Ph.D), and thinks it's a fair comparison between a chosen profession and an unasked-for diagnosis, and all the costs that come with each. Please keep in mind that you can churn out all the doctors you want, but until someone finds a "cure" for autism (and I doubt many people would accept a cure anyway), you're still going to have at least 1 in 150 citizens of the United States diagnosed with autism this year (and next, and next... and the numbers keep going up!). Chances are, someone you know already has a child, sibling, or relative with the diagnosis... and they're not getting the support they need because so many of us don't want to "waste" our money. Think about that next time you whine about your taxes. Then go vote for someone who will handle the budget properly, and get your kids the education they so very much deserve.

Watching the Clouds

This is a map of whitecoralbells.blogspot.com as seen by Wordle. It's pretty cool. The link was found on the NaNoWriMo forums, and I'm pretty interested in how it presents blocks of text as visuals. It certainly gives you a good idea of what I blog about on a daily basis, eh? Books, school and kids all come up fairly often! Maybe I ought to toss in a political entry just to mix things up. ;)

Read Animal Farm today (finally). More thoughts on that later, if I find the time. Right now, gotta take the puppy out for play!

An Open Letter to The Richmond High School Rape Witnesses

Dear witnesses,

You disgust me. You really do. The entire news story disgusts me; rape is never ok and no one ever deserves it or asks for it, but the ones I blame even more than the perpetrators of the crime are you: the witnesses.

How could you stand by and let this happen? The news says there were at least ten of you. Ten people, standing or sitting nearby, seeing what was going on... or did you turn your heads? Did you pretend it wasn't happening? Did you watch with that same horrified fascination that presents itself at the scenes of brutal car crashes and burning homes? I understand that group psychology dictates that everyone in the group is predisposed to think that someone else will take responsibility. I was taught that the Kitty Genovese murder was allowed to take place because of a psychological blind spot which allowed every single witness to believe honestly and truly that someone else was calling 911. And knowing that, all of that psychological bullshit still doesn't excuse YOU. Any of you. All of you. You all sat back and waited for someone else to act first. None of you took responsibility and stepped forward.

You must have been scared. You must have been angry or uncomfortable or felt unsafe. But what did you do about it? You waited for someone else to save your asses, and hers. Now you have to live with the sickness that should rightly come with helping something like this happen. You have to go to sleep every night with the knowledge that you failed to stop a beautiful young woman from losing her self, her entire sense of safety within her own body and mind... and that a single word could have made a difference. You have to wake up every morning with a sense of personal failure - and you SHOULD. Every last one of you should learn to take responsibility for yourselves; you need to learn to step forward and speak up for your own safety. You could be next, regardless of your age, sex, or orientation. You could be the victim of another act of senseless violence, and what do you think you will feel like when you see 10 more faces staring at you, silent and watching as the crime takes place?

Think about that next time you walk by one of the rapists, or a fellow witness. Think about it, and feel disgusting, because you are. You are slime, and screaming for more lights, cameras and security fences will never protect you from yourselves. Only taking responsibility for your own safety and using your own voice can keep you safe. Maybe once you've figured out how to stand up and say something, instead of blindly hoping someone else will take care of it, you'll also figure out how to forgive yourselves.

Sincerely,

Faerunner
The blogger who, from now on, is going to make even more of an effort to live responsibly.

Countdown to NaNoWriMo!

National Novel Writing Month is coming!

Join us on a 30-day trip through your own imagination. Leave the dishes undone for a few more hours and get someone else to sort the socks and feed the cat. You know you want to write that novel "some day", and November 1st is the day to sit down and start typing, writing, or dictating your masterpiece. Set the inner editor aside and let the words flow!

Click the image or the link above to visit the NaNoWriMo site and find out what this awesome venture is all about and sign up for yourself. If you do, you'll find me there and in the IRC chat (available on the site or at irc.goodchatting.com #nanowrimo) as MossAngel. Good luck, future Wrimos!

Home Gardening Strikes Again!

In case you're wondering whether your tiny square of grass will make a difference in the way you eat... this is the harvest I got out of my garden this afternoon. Not included: 2+ lbs of beans previously harvested, the rest of the lettuce bed and one potential pea pod. I chose to pull it all in today because two nights ago we got a frost that killed my bean plants and nipped the potato... and we're low on groceries. The carrots, lettuce and (surprisingly) the two pea vines did ok through the frost, although I doubt the peas will flower before the next cold snap.

Here are my garden specs this year:
Planted: Mid-August
Crops sown: Spinach, sugar snap peas, green bush beans, lettuce, chives, carrots, potato (planted later than the rest - found going to seed in a WalMart bag and stuck in a hill on a whim).
Crops harvested: 2+lbs bush beans, loads of lettuce, pan full of baby taters, 5 carrots (plus 3 more too small to pull).
Hours invested: Approx. 10, not counting random runs to grab a bean/lettuce head and pull 3 or 4 weeds. Includes tearing up entire 14x14' back yard, fertilizing, raking, planting, watering, weeding, and current state of winter prep (tilling weeds into soil and mulching, 1/4 done).

Problems I ran into: the seeds I used were just not up to the challenge. Peas took 3 plantings before some came up. Chives and spinach never showed up at all. Carrots sprouted after I had given up on them, and one ended up in the lettuce bed somehow. For 2 year old improperly stored seeds that I just happened to have on hand, the beans and lettuce came up amazingly well and the whimsical potato planting gave at least a fourfold investment in volume compared to the seed tater - not bad for a short growing season! The bean rows did terminate in an anthill, though - something I ignored when I tilled and planted. I learned my lesson and sacrificed two whole plants plus the beans off another one to the ants.

Improvements: Better bed planning (removing the anthill, putting the carrots in the sandy area at the back, etc) and utilization of space. Getting a big washtub to use for compost at the back of the garden. Adding a proper path through the beds, proactive weed removal (mulch!) and more fertilizer! I'd also like to make it look prettier next year with some nicer row markers and plant cages... but that's something to worry about come January. :D

Looking forward to getting things all done for winter, and very glad I "bothered" planting something this year. It may not have been worth the 10 hours of labor in monetary terms, but you couldn't pay me enough to give up the satisfaction of eating my own produce.

Pittsburgh Welcomes the World? Bah.

G20 is starting (has started?) today. El presidente is supposed to be arriving as of a few minutes ago, if I heard right. The news radio stations are a flurry of critiques and snarky comments and Pittsburgh business hates that the entire area around the convention center where G20 meetings will be held is closed off, barricaded and guarded and everyone's lost business and money from the deal. That's not even going into the issues we're having with traffic, what with stopping it on the parkways to let delegates come rolling through the empty streets in their heavily-armored motorcades, half the downtown blocked off and several major throughways being re-routed around the city. It's a nasty mess and honestly, I'm pessimistic about the entire thing, but then I haven't been connected enough to educate myself about what's going on past listening to the radio when I can (10-minute snatches in the car)... so I can't really comment other than to report the unease that everyone else seems to be feeling, and note that the large noisy 'birds' passing by every few hours with binoculars almost certainly aimed at the area below are making me nervous, too.

The mayor has apparently declared a state of emergency as well, the effect of which is to increase police power during the summit and to limit the rights of protesters including the right to open carry a firearm without a carry permit (normally, open carry does not require a permit of any kind - only concealed carry requires the License to Carry Firearms). This means that anyone caught openly carrying a weapon without their LCTF is likely to be hauled away to the jail with the several hundred protesters who have been stuck into cells and the rather upset prisoners rousted from said cells to live in the jail gymnasiums until the summit's over. Did I mention it's a mess down here? But that's politics for ya...

In happier news, I saw two deer yesterday morning while driving to work. Came around the corner of the street that lets out of our little neighborhood, and there they were on the side of the road, looking wide-eyed and utterly confused at the amount of morning traffic, while we stared back at them equally wide-eyed at the closeness of nature. I'm 5 minutes walking distance from a major road through the South Hills and it's amazing to me still that there's a full hillside of grapevine and second-growth forest to block the noise and the exhaust fumes from the houses up here, plus deer, rabbits, groundhogs and other interesting critters wandering the brushy hills.

I think what's kept Pittsburgh green is its lack of flat space. Most cities built near water are on floodplains, from what I've seen; they naturally use every bit of ground available to them. Here where there are cliffs and steep hillsides along the three rivers and where they had to build two incline railways just to move miners and steel workers from their hilltop homes to the industry at the banks, there is still a lot of green space that has been built over, under, and around but not through. It's as though the city isn't so big after all, until you crest a hill and the illusion vanishes in the glitter of a thousand windows staring back at you from the hills. Pittsburgh is a pretty city.

In other news, Mystra the puppy (did I mention we got a lab/retriever/something else mix puppy?) is doing well. She's finally figured out how to bark and we have retaliated by telling her "good speak!" and then shutting her up by handing her a treat and praising her for being quiet. She's picking up on it fast - I hope that by next week she'll know both "speak" and "quiet" to add to sit, lay down, come, potty (only outside - she hasn't had an accident yet today!), and stay (although stay is difficult. Try asking your toddler to sit still some time!). She is also very friendly and our biggest challenge with her is getting her to recognize that not all new people want to have a puppy diving at their legs. She doesn't like to be dragged away from new friends and thinks that everyone loves her!

Lots of fun, lots of running around. My schedule was messed up due to some lack of paperwork last week on the part of the insurance company, but it's back to normal this week and I only lost a few hours so I'm not crying - yet. We'll see how much I have left over after next week's paycheck goes to rent and bills. We haven't turned the gas on since the only thing that uses it is the heat and water heater - pitcher showers with water heated on the stove work pretty well! Honestly, I'm glad we didn't have to pay gas the first few weeks here. It's allowed me to put a little bit more money toward buying things like blinds for the windows. Soon we'll be working on curtains as well! Things are coming together nicely - pictures coming soon!

That's about it - we're using Rick's phone and the tethering service that he's been paying for so that we can connect to the internet at home, but I'm going to make a library run at some point this week to return a few books and pick up some more reading. I'll say one thing - not having 'net at home has really improved my reading habits!

Stuff of Interest

Newsweek has an interesting article about children and race perception, if you have time for a read. It's definitely worth noting that NOT talking about race (or hair color, or gender, or anything else) allows a child to form a bias against those of other races as part of a natural psychological need to categorize people and to form a group in which they feel safe and accepted. Kids gravitate toward those they feel will share their views and opinions (much as adults do) and they are likely to separate each other using the most prominent physical characteristics when they are young, which can lead to a lifetime of unspoken separatist attitudes.

In other news I shot the groundhog (with a BB!) today. He was only nibbling weeds, but I'm not about to let him get cozy in my garden, and Rick thoughtfully left the bb gun by the window. The pudgy critter jumped about a foot in the air when I popped him in the side, and then headed for the shed like the devil was behind him. It made me giggle, but I'm sure it's only a temporary fix. If I could fire the .22 within city limits I'd have aimed for his fat head, but as it is, the BB gun packs a good sting and will make him think twice till I can go digging under the shed and block off his hole.

Quickie

Walked to the library today to save the quarters for the laundromat instead of feeding a meter. It's a gorgeous day, and I enjoyed it. I might stop for ice cream on the way back, since my paycheck was a little more than I expected it to be (hooray!).

Kitten (I've forgotten to update about her! Oh no!) is doing well at nearly 4 months old and is free of the ear mites that had taken over her darling little ears when we first got her. I've been watching all of the cats closely to make sure no reinfestation took place - so far so good! They're all overjoyed by the couch and spent the morning curled in various positions on and around it and me as I finished off another book. I'm going through this library entirely too fast, but I love having books so close, and I'm trying to catch up on my reading before November, when I'll be deep in work and writing. NaNo is coming again!

The library is full of characters as always. Maybe if I hang out here enough this winter I'll start typing out stories about them, because things are always funnier if shared.

Off to get something tasty for lunch and enjoy my Friday before work! :)

Dawn

Busy, busy, busy!

Ok, time to put my fast typing fingers to work, since I've slacked off on blogging till my computer timer says 12 minutes left! Still no 'net at home (of course) - my paychecks are only this week getting caught up to the 15-hour weeks I've been working for the last 3, and I'll be up to 32 or so as of next week (Hooray!). Next month they'll catch up to the 30-hour weeks and I'll actually be making enough to pay that nagging student loan that I defaulted on last month. The office handed me a case with a darling little boy who is one of quadruplets, so I've been told I'll be there as part of a TEAM of TSS's; we each have an assigned kiddo but it'll be good to have backup! I'm excited to get the extra hours and hope that the case is as fun as it sounds (they usually are).

Gardening is going well. I found 5 or 6 teeny tiny carrots sprouting after I'd given up on the entire bed; I don't know if the rest were dud seeds (they were old) or if they just didn't like the weather. Two of my second-planting peas have come up as well. I guess I'll have to content myself with a meager pea harvest this year and try new seeds in the spring.

I also found out what's been digging holes under the fence in the garden - a FAT groundhog. I had thought that whatever it was had been scared off after last week's discovery of holes in the pea bed (which is right against the fence) but I went out this morning to investigate the appearance of 3 more holes (none of which made it all the way under - the other side is paved in large chunks of rock) and as I was scrutinizing the unknown critter's handiwork I happened to glance up... right into the eyes of a very large and very content groundhog. He hurried under the shed as soon as he heard me say "You bastard!", but now that I know what he is, I'm going after him. Anyone know how to set up an effective snare? I want groundhog stew, and this one's big enough to give us stew meat for a month.

Jeep continues to be dead. Rick replaced the starter, and it's not the issue. The engine still clunks and won't turn over. Most likely it'll need an engine replacement but we can't afford to get it towed to a garage just yet so it sits.

Got our couch (half of it, anyway) on Wednesday. Rick went north to see his grandmother after news that she got a good offer on the house and she'll be moving soon. He borrowed her van and brought her down for the evening; we got the couch set up and had a great dinner and a nice visit. She's found a cute apartment near us and her daughter so we'll all be within range for holiday visits and random stopping-by. He's back up today, bringing her home again and cleaning out his old room.

It will be good to have family closer than New York, even if it's not technically my side of the family. I miss everyone back home but no one seems to have time to come visit, and I can't afford time off work yet. Hopefully with the addition of more hours to my schedule I'll earn enough paid time off to take a holiday break. I'm debating the offer of a Saturday client as well, but pending more information I don't think I'm going to take it. 30+ hours a week is good enough for me, at least for now. I'm waiting for a library position to open up, but failing that I think I'll try for a few hours tutoring each week, instead of taking more clients. Variety is the spice of life, after all!

Update #3

Well, we got power on Monday afternoon (the truck was there by the time we got back from the library) and so now we have a fridge, although no gas for hot water yet. My job is going very well; the little boy likes me and is easy to work with although he gets distracted easily so I have to think fast between activities. We spend at least 15 minutes every day outside, which is great fun.

My garden is sprouting, in other news! I checked yesterday morning and the chives, spinach, and lettuce have all sent up sprouts and this morning I counted 3 big fat bean sprouts pushing up through the dirt as well. I'm terribly excited by it all, and encouraged by the big, thriving gardens in some of the neighbors' yards. I like our neighborhood, especially how close it is to everything (30 minutes of walking will get you to a dozen bus stops and almost as many pizza places, a shopping center, the library, and a street full of assorted local shops). We walked up to the library today, which was very nice although it's a bit toasty out there!

In worse news, the Jeep remains dead. We now think it's the engine, which means lots of pain (and money) to test/replace. We took both the battery and the alternator to the local Advance to have them tested and neither seems to be the problem. For now the Jeep is immobile, and the bike is wrecked (again) due to an idiot in an SUV... as if I needed more reasons to hate those lumbering pieces of junk. Rick was out yesterday taking a jacket back to his old employer when a woman cut him off at a merge point, tapped the motorcycle and threw him off. He scraped up his arm and leg pretty nicely... he says he didn't hit his head but I'm glad he was wearing the helmet anyway. She then proceeded to ask if he was ok and drove off when he said yes. The insurance won't cover the damage to the bike and since we don't know HER info we can't put a claim through to her insurance either. Thankfully it's not "serious" - the exhaust just needs to be put back on and the frame bent back into place - but it's just one more more thing to deal with when we're very low on resources.

Ah well. I want to end on a positive note! We're healthy, we've got a roof that doesn't leak, we have cheap shopping (Salvation Army Superstore for clothes, Aldi and WalMart for groceries and home goods) nearby, I like my job and the garden's coming along... life is going pretty well, all things considered.

Powerless update #2

Lots to do, lots to do. 4 hours on Thursday and 2 on Friday of weeding, hoeing, raking, hauling 160lbs of humus/manure (which barely covered my beds... sigh!), planting and watering... but the garden is finally in! I'm sore from my thumbs to my calves, but it's going to be worth it when I can make a salad from my own veggies. I planted beans, peas, carrots, lettuce and spinach, and scattered some chives in the back by the shed. Now I'm crossing my fingers and watching for sprouts impatiently.

Even without power we're doing ok. Rick figured out a great way to make tea involving a small oil diffuser (the kind where you set a pan of scented oil on top, with a tealight on the bottom) and a metal cup. With a taller candle the water gets plenty warm for tea or individual cups of coffee! I'll get a picture of it some time, so you can see the genius of it. Considering I always thought the diffusers were pretty useless, I'm glad we have one now.

Not much else to say for now. Back at the library updating, of course. Today is a market day and the street's lined with little stands selling jewelry, arts and crafts, and neat trinkets. My wallet is thankfully empty, or I'd be dragging home more stuff! There's also a 5k walk/run today, which if I had found out about sooner I'd be interested in doing; as it stands I'm so sore from gardening that I don't think I'll bother. There might be another one or two before it gets too cold, so I figure I'll keep exercising and do the next one.

The Jeep broke down on the highway Wednesday night (I think it was Wednesday) so we ended up getting it towed all the way into Pittsburgh and dropped in front of the house... turns out it's probably the alternator, which will be a $160 fix. Much better than our fears of engine replacement, though. Rick will get working on it soon, I'm sure. The Jeep is the only vehicle we have that's high enough to back into our hillside parking spot without scraping on the curb all the way down, so that spot is empty and with 3 vehicles on the street it's awfully crowded. We have to make sure that the garbage truck can get around everything on Tuesday, or the landlord says they'll be lazy and just skip the house.

Plenty to say but there are a lot of people waiting for computers here so I'm going to finish checking e-mail and log off. :) If you want more news, give us a call! My phone has a pretty good battery life and we'll be going out to Rick's aunt's house this weekend most likely so we can charge everything again. Ah, the joys of nearby relatives from whom to mooch!

Quick Library Update

Well, here's a very quick update! I'm on the library computers, which give you a brisk 45 minutes per login session to get things done, so no long rants for Dawn! The good news is that I found the library, and it's a nice walk from the house to here.

We're moved in with all our stuff (some of which I feel like we should have jettisoned, after having dragged it all into vehicles, out of vehicles, and up and down the stairs. Ugh! We're sorting things out at the house. The electrical inspector will be here this afternoon to check the wiring and then hopefully will get his backside over to the power company ASAP so we can have power - they said we'd get it turned on the day after they got the OK from him. He would've been here yesterday but the landlord didn't call until we had left for Indiana for our last bunch of stuff, and left the doors locked behind us. Oops! We also have to get a gas meter put in on our side of the house as it's nonexistent but we're not as worried about the gas as we are about just having LIGHTS. The furnace and the water heater are gas but I can deal with cold showers for a few days...

I have work, too! The office here has need of more people (yay!) and with my schedule being totally open (at least until I go looking for a library job), I was immediately dropped into a position 15 hours a week in the evenings. I'm thrilled since 15 hours will pay the rent, if not much else, and I'll have more soon - once school starts, since I'm one of the only TSS's without college classes, I'll have daytime work as well. :)

Overall, doing well. Going to try to get some garden work done this afternoon, since I have beans, peas, lettuce and spinach to try to get in and growing before the frost hits, and the "garden" is covered in weeds and is very sandy. If we're lucky we'll get a decent crop out of the tiny chunk of backyard that isn't covered in deck! I'm excited to do anything at all in actual earth instead of pots, although I brought a few pots anyway, since I figure if I can keep the cats off them I might be able to get a late-season tomato started outside and bring it in for the winter, or something. I even have a new hoe to play with, now that I have more than 2sq ft of space to dig in! :D

So there's the update - no power or heat yet, but we have water and I have work (actually, I have orientation at the office in an hour, so I should sign off and walk home!). Will update again in a few days when we have some idea what we're doing with our internet, since the house is only wired for phone right now (no cable?! Oh no!) and we're going to discuss the cost/work with the landlord of wiring the place for cable, at least in the living room/first floor, so we can dive back under the heavy hands of Comcast and its high-speed connections instead of struggling with dial-up. What can we say, we're spoiled!

Moving on...

This upcoming week will be our last in town. We're moving to the Big City, to (hopefully) get better jobs, expand our cultural horizons and avoid the rent hikes that cut painfully into our budget the last 2 years. We're paying less for more space at the new duplex, but it still feels weird letting go of this little cramped apartment. We've been here 3 years, and this will be my first time living in a town with a population of more than 15,000 - Pittsburgh's population is somewhere over 300,000. Naturally, I'm a little apprehensive.

I'm not worried about violence - our current home is statistically less violent than Pittsburgh, but it only has 1/3 the property crimes, and for a town this size, that's a LOT of vandalized cars and broken-in doors, not to mention the issues we have had during popular holidays and especially around Homecoming. I'm more worried about getting lost, both physically and metaphorically. I've been frantically looking up the locations of needed services (doctor, stores, bus stops, my new office) and then double and triple-checking them on the map, looking at distances and running through Google Streetview until I feel less nervous about walking to the library or the mall, but Google Maps doesn't work well as an inner compass. Pittsburgh is farther from most of my friends (who I already don't see much) and I don't have any real hobbies to get me out of the house to meet new people. In an unsurprising spiral effect, not meeting new people will keep me at home even more. I am an introvert at heart, but even introverts need company sometimes and it's nice to have more than one shoulder to lean on.

Since we're changing our address I feel the need to make other changes, too - start a garden in our tiny new yard, start working out again, pick up a new hobby (I was looking at dance classes), change careers, maybe work on grad school applications one more time. Unfortunately, I feel stuck. I'm still too worried about my bank balance, my job, and my health (I need to see a dentist desperately but we just can't afford it, and I should probably check in with a specialist about my 3-month-long sinus infection). All the stress isn't doing anything for my ability to concentrate, let alone stick to another long-term commitment like exercise or grad school. And I know part of me is saying that all I need to achieve my higher goals is just start working on them and believe they'll happen, but another part is screaming at me that I'm being impatient and starting things too soon and that I should sit back and let life figure out where it's going with me, instead of the other way 'round.

For now I'm content to sit back and let life move us along to a new place... we'll see where it goes from there.

Grrr, Argh.

The last few weeks seem to have brought intense frustration down upon my head, and I'm reacting with the usual amount of stress and snapping at everything. Every plan we make seems to fall apart like a house of cards, and I can't take it.

For instance: My loan forbearance application went through to AES, and they sent me back a paper with a list of loans for which the forbearance was granted. They neglected to tell me that 2 of my loans, including one Stafford loan and one "alternate" private loan, weren't included. Why they left out my Stafford loan is beyond me, although the alternate loan makes sense. What gets me is that 1) They never told me I still had loans to pay off this month, and 2) They've got the nerve to call my account delinquent for their lack of communication. I don't have the money anyway, which is why I applied in the first place... so the account will have to remain delinquent until such time as I start making enough to pay. It's yet another stressor, and I wish that it would go away.

The wedding, of course, is a huge source of stress. Mostly, it's stressful because we're (possibly?) getting married on the 16th and we don't know what's going on yet. Rick's schedule changes on a daily basis, or so it seems... his supervisors can't find their ass with both hands and can't give him even a rough idea of when he'll be working that week, so we aren't sure he'll even be here to go sign the paperwork. Mom's not coming down, which means less stress as far as performances go, but more because now I feel guilty for chasing her off. Still, we can't exactly promise a wedding on the 16th when we're not even sure one of us will be free to do it. Then there's the issue of an officiant. PA supposedly allows self-uniting marriages, in which there does not need to be an officiant; originally they were offered to those religious groups who had no ordained spiritual leader, such as the Amish and the Quakers, but a State Supreme Court ruling in '07 decided that a couple whose secular beliefs led them to apply for a self-uniting marriage should be awarded the certificate. When we asked, the clerk said they don't even stock those applications because "no one ever asks for them", and we were later told that unless we were Quaker, we couldn't have one. Which is it? Are there none to have, or we just can't have one? Either way, it's frustrating because now we are searching frantically for an officiant who won't attempt to crack open a bible and drone at us when all we want them for is a signature. PA won't recognize internet-ordained ministers either (they demand that the officiant hold regular services with a congregation!), so I can't even ask my stepfather to perform the honors. I'm PISSED about it, and I'm frustrated that so many things are getting in our way.

So yeah. Financial issues, time issues, and the house we were so excited about renting... isn't ours yet. Apparently the wife didn't know that her husband wanted us to fill out a rental application first, and so she waited 4 days and needed an email from me before sending it to us. Grrrr...

We found a house!

Those of you who know us know that we've been planning to move toward Pittsburgh to ease up the long drives that my fiance has to do for work, as well as to get out of our increasingly expensive apartment and find somewhere a little more... private. We're frankly sick of having neighbors above us, below us, and around us. I'm also sick of not having grass and a garden.

Previously, I'd run a few searches in the Pittsburgh Tribune and Craigslist (To the guy who started it: THANK YOU!), but hadn't turned up much of interest. There were about 3 places out of the 40 or so I initially looked at that fit all our requirements: Allowed pets (without an extra monthly fee), had enough parking/a space for Rick to work on the cars, had enough space, and was under our current rent. I posted a Housing Wanted ad on Craigslist myself, just in case.

About a month ago a very nice woman answered my ad, saying that she had a 1-bedroom house for rent, and although it took us nearly a month to get back to her, she called last night saying she hadn't rented it yet and would we like to come look. Turns out she was holding out for us to see it before she posted it in the paper, and we loved it.

The house doesn't look like much, and it's adjacent to an alley, but there's parking for our vehicles, a small patch of grass, and a little Japanese maple tree in the fenced-in yard. The interior has a wood floor in the living room, ceramic tile in the kitchen and bath, and a full basement newly painted and sealed (so it's dry!) with a work bench and laundry area. There's also a little square of dirt outside that the landlady said used to have hedges, which are since gone (except the stumps). When I asked about a garden she was thrilled - so veggies will be going in outside the kitchen window next spring! I might be able to even coax a crop of lettuce and spinach out of it this year, if the frost holds off. It's small, maybe 5x7, but it's already weed-free and edged!

We poked around, stuck our heads in everywhere, exclaimed over the workbench and the wood floors, and generally decided that we like it. It's small, but it's cozy, and at $200 less than we're paying now, plus privacy, how can we say no? As I told Rick - "I feel like we're moving up in the world. We have a patch of grass!". Next step - something with a barn.

More thoughts on Education.

Someone on Facebook posted a link to yet another news article detailing the excruciating battle between Christian Values and Scientific Learning that is taking place in school science classrooms. Expressing frustration with the fact that yet another class of children is going to be put through Creationism as a theory while ignoring all the other possible creation myths out there. She claims that she's going to put her kids in private school and supplement their education at home to work around this. I said "Homeschool, duh!".

Someone else claims that public school will be just fine for their kid, with parental involvement tacked on the side after the public school day to make sure they actually learn something. That got me thinking, because that's what my father tried to do with us for years.

The problem with putting very bright, home-educated children into an environment like most public schools is that they are incredibly likely to suffer for it at the hands of both teachers (who are statistically the underachievers of their own past high school classes - what does it say that your kid's teacher probably has a lower SAT score than he will?) and kids (who are either jealous or distrustful of a child who knows so much more than they do and prefers learning over making fart jokes). In some ways, having a parent who is active in your academic life either in or out of the classroom is a dividing factor, especially in days when many children are raised by the TV. Even if they claim happiness with this method, there can be no doubt that many of them desire more attention from the two most important people in their life, and realize that in some way when they react poorly to students who show signs of a strong parental bond.

I know - I was one of those kids. By high school, the system had crushed my love of education pretty badly, and I consider myself one of the lucky ones. The educational system is not only failing our underachieving youth; it's failing the overachievers.

With the exception of a few star pupils who are reading so far above grade level that their parents enroll them in college successfully at 10 years old (and make the national news doing it), most "gifted" kids never find the recognition and challenges they desire in public school. I know I was reading at an 8th grade level (coincidentally, the level that most newspapers write at, and the level at which most kids stop learning) when I was in 3rd or 4th grade. I only know this because my parents bothered telling me. No one at the school, that I am aware of(although this could be due to a fuzzy memory - in those years I was reading so much that I lived half my day in a fantasy world of one sort or another), ever told me that I was smarter than the rest of the class. I wasn't placed in any advanced classes, given harder material, differentiated at all from the others. One of my clearest memories of fourth grade is reading Hatchet in reading circle and being so frustrated with the pace that others were reading at that I wanted to blurt out every word they stumbled on, which was most of them. The teacher told us to follow along, but I couldn't make myself read that slowly, so I half-listened to parts I had read 10 minutes ago being sounded out by the slow readers while I flipped ahead. Inevitably I'd be caught and chastised for reading ahead, as the teacher would skip around the circle instead of following an order, presumably to 'catch' poor students who would otherwise attempt to predict their reading passage and pre-read it several times instead of listening to the story. She never did seem to catch the poor readers (they were right in front of her, stumbling over words like 'assumption' and 'porcupine').

It got worse from there, but after my parents split and I stopped getting so many impromptu engineering lessons from dad, my head start faltered and I ended up in the top percentile of my class instead of high above it. I have no doubt that with the right combination of teacher support, parental challenges and financial aid I could have gone to college a few years early, but no one in the educational system wanted to realize that, and my bet is that they didn't like the thought of pulling their student funding until I had been thoroughly wrung dry by the system and they could graduate me "on time". Consider this: The school districts spent an average of $7000 per pupil to educate us in the '99-00 school year ^[1]. Considering that lovely sum, why would a school remove a student (and therefore, the student's $7k or more in funding) for early placement in a higher grade when they can continue sucking money out of taxpayers and government?

Teachers really don't help; students seem to despise peers who achieve better than they do. I had friends, but mostly I had competition. By fourth grade it was clear that some of use were "smarter" than the others, and our small group competed within itself for the honor of highest grades and most teacher praise. I remember being especially envious of one boy whose father had helped him with a civil war project. Mine was a clay figure of Abraham Lincoln holding a tiny, painstakingly copied Gettysburg Address in his little clay hands. Mom couldn't find modeling clay so it was the cheap Crayola clay, and it fell apart quickly. The boy (who I also had a crush on) had a plywood board painted as a battlefield, complete with plastic hills and two opposing armies of blue and grey toy soldiers. It was a masterpiece of elementary school projects and I hated him for it. But back to the point - the other kids hated all of us "smart" kids. So we tried our best to stay quiet and not achieve too much, lest we be tormented mercilessly (I bet those kids didn't even know how to SAY merciless at that point!) by the peers who were either jealous of our success or hurt by it.

In a school situation like that it's not hard to see why I'd prefer my children, if I have them, to be homeschooled. I know that even if I adopt, my kids are not going to fit in with the educational system by the time I'm done with them, and I don't want them to. The schools have failed us, and I want them to know this. I don't blame parents who want to send their kids to a better school because they don't think they can homeschool a child. Not everyone is a teacher, and not everyone has the time and energy to play teacher to a bright and curious child. However, I don't think we should be giving bad schools any more support than is legally necessary (keep payin' your taxes, folks), and in fact I think we should protest every board meeting that goes by without improving the situation in our schools... if more of our children were getting a proper education, and not just shoved into boxlike rooms and told to behave for 6 hours a day, I think a lot of our other "problems" would start to fix themselves... but that's another post

1. Gross, Martin L. Conspiracy of Ignorance, The. New York: HarperCollins, 1999. Back to post

Tales from the Library

For those of you who haven't been stalking me lately, I've started to volunteer at the library two days a week, shelving books. It's a great way to spend 2 hours a day, although that goes really quickly when you're trying to shelve a cartful of children's literature. Kids' books are always first priority because they're the library's most popular item and there's almost always a lot of them to re-shelve.

Of course, when working anywhere there are people, there will be fun stories. Today I found a lot of interesting bits in books. Someone left a note saying "hi" on one of the shelves upstairs, for starters. Not terribly exciting, but there's always the little mystery of who left the mundane notes one finds, and for whom?

In the children's cart I didn't find much of interest other than a book that was mildly sticky (watermelon and books don't get along) and two falling out of their bindings (promptly handed over to be fixed. The poor books!). The adult section was full of wonders today, though. I found no less than 5 checkout slips (they're printed out every time you take out a book or pay a fine, as a reciept and to remind you when it's due, since our library doesn't use a card system any more). The slips have the library user's full name, the date and a list of their currently checked out works... paper trails that make it easy for a finder to make up stories about why they checked out that particular series of books. One girl had checked out the same book I just returned - Three Cups of Tea. I also found, in a time management book, someone's printed weekly schedule and handwritten notes regarding mailing out cards. Looks like the book wasn't as useful as they hoped, since they must have been in a hurry to return it!

The best find, though, was an envelope which fell out of the back of one of the nonfiction books. It said "Sorry, Dad was in the hospital. Hope this covers the fee!". It was a mundane enough task to report it to the desk after a brief period of wonderment that someone would be so considerate as to put their late fee in an envelope before using the night drop box, (and that the librarians had missed it - apparently they don't check the books before putting them on the carts). Still, it was a neat sense of mystery to have to look up the nameless patron who had last checked it out and make sure that his late fee was labeled with his name so that the librarians could absolve him of the crime of returning a book late (one I often commit, I am ashamed to say). It was also a touching reminder that library patrons are not nameless and faceless, despite the fact that as shelvers we are far removed from the act of choosing the book or returning it and will likely never know who took out Jane Austen's complete works. I really hope that patron's dad is ok.

So overall, it was an interesting day at the library. I really like it there.

Well, I -was- feeling pretty good...

It's hard to feel poor when you have 6 meals' worth of turkey soup and homemade bread (albeit a bit overdone) sitting in the kitchen... until you remember the electric bill for making all of it.