Living in a Small Town

I always knew that the town I live in is small, however, the longer I live here the smaller it seems to get. Now Mark has lived here his entire life (other than his college years) and it is not surprising to me when we're out and about together that we see several people he knows. He's taught and coached for a number of years, so parents and former students frequently approach him to have a conversation about their lives since Mark last had contact with them. This happens so regularly that I often refer to Mark as Mayor Mac. Oddly enough, this fan-base of his doesn't only exist in our town. When we go to OSU football games, he always sees someone who knows him. We've been at the coast and have had people holler from across the street, "Hey Mac!". This has happened in Portland, as well. My favorite example, though, is our first trip to Yellowstone together. I kid you not, we were walking near Old Faithful when out of the crowd we heard, "Mac!!!" Mark then proceeded to have yet another conversation with a former student. The humorous part to all of this is that 90% of the time, he hasn't got a clue who he's talking with. I know he remembers who they are if he introduces me. Otherwise, he'll be graceful and appear to be genuinely interested in what these individuals have to say but walk back to me and say, "I have no idea....".

Well, I went into Fred Meyer the other day, for miscellaneous items, and before I even made my way through the garden entrance I saw the realtor I had been working with. We chatted for a few minutes about houses, the market, etc. I continued walking through the doors and made my way to the clothing section. As I strolled up and down the aisles I heard a familiar voice. The voice was yelling and giggling, and swearing, unfortunately. I looked up from one of the clothing racks to identify the voice. I made eye contact with the young lady and thought to myself "ohhhh" while she proceeded to grin from ear to ear. It was Anna. Anna was in my class 2 years ago and on my caseload. She was from a disfunctional home and was absolutely out of control at school. In fact, as an IEP team we changed her placement to a self-contained program and she wound up at the other middle school. Despite Anna's hard life and poor choices, she was a very soft individual who was easily wounded. She often attacked before anyone could see how vulnerable she really was. This defense mechanism kept other peers away and outraged teachers. Anna could turn a classroom upside down in 3.2 seconds. Yet, she always used my class as a safe zone and would show up at random times during the day refusing to go to any other rooms. During her 8th grade year she got pregnant; Anna was an absolutely beautiful girl without boundaries. She kept the baby, of course, and I lost contact with her after the end of her 8th grade year.
So there I am in Fred Meyer, holding a dress, jaw wide open, when she walks right up to me (she is also much taller than me), smiling, and puts her arms around me for the biggest bear hug I think I've ever received. She started rambling on and saying, "Look at you all cute and married"! She reached for my hand and examined my ring. She wanted to know if had babies yet, if I was still teaching, etc. I inquired about her and who she was with. She introduced me to the two boys she was with as "skinny white b*&#@" and "slut". I asked her not to swear in public as 3 heads turned to look at her when she "made the introductions". She told me she was going to drop out of school if they made her go back to alternative ed., that her mom had kicked her out but had kept the baby, and she mentioned that she was living on the streets and with these 2 boys. As you are figuring out, Anna has issues. A prominent issue that she has is lying. You never quite knew what the truth was. Trying to call home to confirm or deny her statements was useless; Anna came by her issues honestly and her mother was worse. As I was thinking about what her life must be like and what the future life of her infant son will be like she asked me if I still made lasagna and said she had been craving some. I used to make her lunch as a reward and she would always request lasagna and sit with me during her lunch to eat together. I had completely forgotten about these lunches, and found myself smirking. I actually haven't made lasagna since I last made it for her....
We said good-bye and she hugged me again. I told her I just want to take care of her and hoped that she made good choices. She smiled and said, "You always did take care of me" then she was off.
I compared this encounter with the dozens that Mark has. His conversations with former students always include college, families, etc. I look forward to the day I have that type of encounter. For now, I suppose that's the difference between regular and special education. Actually, it's the difference between opportunities and parental support, but don't get me started!
So, I wandered away from the clothing area and saw my friend Eileen (the one I went to the Bodies exhibit with), and while we were talking I couldn't help but think about what a small town I live in....

Bodies

My friend Eileen and I went down to Redding, CA. on Wednesday to see the Bodies exhibit at the Turtle Bay Exploratorium. I have included the following link should you wish to seek more information regarding Turtle Bay or the Bodies exhibit:
http://www.turtlebay.org/exh_bodiesRevealed.php

This exhibit was absolutely fascinating. Eileen and I drove 4 hours down, 4 hours back and paid $4.71 per gallon of gas in California. Bodies was not only well worth the time spent but the $ spent as well. We couldn't take our eyes off the display cases. We found ourselves feeling the outside of our own bodies as we gazed upon the corresponding bones, blood vessels, muscles, and tendons on display trying to imagine that what we were gawking at was actually just beneath the surface of our own skin.

We spent over an hour in the exhibit, wandering through the various rooms of displayed bodies and body parts. (This is where the exhibit starts to sound like a freak show, and in a way it was, but simultaneously stimulating and educational). The worst part for me was the very last room. In this room there was not only a human body sliced up (with the focus on muscles) eerily mirroring slabs of beef, but this was the "hands on" room. (No pun intended; we were actually allowed to hold some body parts, including a hand). At the end of the exhibit, guests were allowed to write comments and pick up a donor card. The donor card asked for your name, address, etc. with boxes to check indicating whether or not you'd be interested in donating your whole body for display or just parts of it.

After the Bodies exhibit, we wandered the rest of the exploratorium. There were several other exhibits to see as the website indicates, and beautiful gardens to wander through. Our entrance fee paid for access to the entire park, so we stayed for quite a while discussing what we had seen and pondering who in the world would actually complete the donor cards??

Here are some more pictures of our day...

Summer Vacation....So Far

Well, school has been out now for 10 days. I have spent 6 of those 10 days with a head cold. This happened to me last year as well, however, this year I waited to get sick until the very last night of work, whereas last year, I called in sick 2 of the last days with kids. I hope this trend does not become tradition, but if the last 2 years are any indication, things aren't looking so great for me. Mark is starting his second week of driver's ed. instruction but will be done this week.
Despite a head cold and driver's ed. we've managed to get in an awesome weekend getaway. Saturday night was my birthday and on Friday we drove down to Ashland for the Shakespearean festival. Mark bought us tickets to see A Midsummer's Night Dream and we spent the night there. I had never been to a Shakespearean festival before and, shock of all shocks, neither had Mark! Our weekend was amazing and the play exceeded our expectations. I knew I would enjoy myself but I was a bit worried about Mark nodding off in the middle of the production. To my delight, he not only remained awake the whole time, but enjoyed himself as well! He spoiled me rotten the entire time we were there and made me feel like the most important woman on earth.


If you know Mark or I very well, you know that we love to try new restaurants and we found a couple of great ones in Ashland. If you go, we recommend the following:
http://www.ashlandbistrocafe.com/
http://www.theblacksheep.com/enter.html


Both had great food and entertaining atmospheres. We also found some eclectic shops and purchased a few souvenirs. We did not rush to get home on Saturday and took several detours along the way. We stopped in Medford and went shopping (I found the mother of all scrapbooking stores), then drove to Jacksonville. We ate lunch in Jacksonville (found another great restaurant: http://www.jacksonvilleinn.com/rest.htm), and wandered the town. Taking pictures is a hobby of ours (hence the need for a scrapbooking store) and we took plenty of them on this getaway.


After Jacksonville, we went to the Oregon Vortex and learned about this unique phenomenon, and so can you at http://www.oregonvortex.com/





All in all our overnighter in Ashland was extraordinary, and turning 29 has proven to be the most promising year of my 20's (so far).

Wedding Pictures!

The professional wedding photos are in! They are posted online for viewing. You will need to email me if you are interested in seeing them so I can send you the link and give you the password. When you look at them, make sure you have plenty of time available...there are over 300 pictures! We are very pleased with most of them. It will be tough to decide what to order.

Better Mood

I feel as though my last two posts have been a bit on the negative side, and I wanted to lighten the tone. I am in a much better mood, despite some news that came out at work today about requirements and expectations next year. (I'll be grumpy about that in the fall instead) :)

Anyhow, I took the following picture to the head of our yearbook with a letter that read something along the lines of: Jeff- just wanted to introduce you to the special ed. staff that works here in your building.
I then included all of our first and last names....he blushed and apologized, but the look on his face was priceless. He's a good sport- which is convenient, since we plan to deliver pictures and notes to him of us all school year! (Just as a reminder that we are actually on staff....)

Tomorrow is our last day with students for this school year. We are officially done with work on Thursday. I can't believe how fast this year has gone...I think having our wedding to focus on helped quite a bit. Speaking of our wedding, today is our one month anniversary (of wedded bliss, of course). We have not yet seen our professional pictures, but expect that they will be ready to view by this weekend. I'll be sure to post the link to view them online. Time certainly flies....we are sincerely looking forward to summer vacation and have many travel plans in the works. Our big outing this summer will be up to Seattle. We have numerous activities planned while we are there. I've only been to Seattle twice. Once was just overnight because I flew from Sea-tac to Maui (this was when I lived in Montana and it doesn't really count). The other was for a wedding, and I was there for about 3 days and only had time to hit the Seattle Center downtown with the Space Needle. Needless to say, I'm anxious for our trip. I love to see and experience new places.

We also have little "day trips" planned. Our first outing will be for my birthday. We have tickets to see "A Midsummer's Night Dream" at the Ashland Shakespearean festival and have booked a room for the night. I've never been to Ashland, and I hear that it is quite the cultural mecca for southern Oregon. A week after that we are heading over to Newport for a few nights. With the price of gas, we will be limiting our travels some, but we'll still get to do quite a bit. We are ready to sleep in starting Friday morning. Being at work by 6:30 (which means waking up around 5am) every day doesn't exactly match our natural clocks....anyhow, summer is just around the corner! Yahoo!!!!

Annoyed

So, yearbooks came out today.
I've been teaching in the same building now for 4 years. My department (special education) was left out of the yearbook 2 years ago, and it happened again this year! I know it's silly to be upset about this, because I'd like to think that I don't really care if I am personally in the yearbook or not...but I kind of do. What I actually care about, however, is the fact that special ed. seems to be neglected in my building for a multitude of reasons (which I don't understand, by the way) and this situation just adds insult to injury. There are 4 special ed. teachers in our school and not one of us was in the yearbook! Believe it or not, students are upset when they don't see our pictures among the teams of other teachers...they ask things like, "Where is your picture?", "Will you sign your picture?", etc. etc.

Being a special ed. teacher is like being the red-headed step child in an Italian family.
This is just another way of showing us how insignificant we are within our own building.

Grrr... I hope to have a happier post next time I write.

Not Selling (and other random thoughts)

Well, after much work with the realtor, research, and a lot of thought, we have decided that this is not the right time for us to sell. A house like ours isn't going for very much right now, so we are going to stay for a while, get some things in order and try to do some updating instead if we can. I know, I know....we keep changing our minds on this subject, but we've given this decision much thought, crunched some numbers (the budget) and have decided that staying put for now is the smartest choice for us. But, with as often as we change our minds I could have a different post in a few weeks that says "We're selling again!" :) You'll have to stay tuned to find out...
To be honest, we've toyed with the idea of doing some things to our house for a long time. Finances have helped make this decision, so we'll see how this goes. Someone is coming out on Thursday to measure for new cupboards and new flooring. I think I've mentioned before that we are not "handy" people, so therefore, any work that would be done to the house will have to hired out. AHHHH too many decisions to make!!!

So, now that that news is out of the way, I can write about other random thoughts that are on my mind...
I have some friends and family members who write blogs and I keep reading their posts. I have come to the decision that other people are much better writers than I am (especially you, Jessica!) I guess posts are more interesting if you have a child to write about or happen to live in England, or have a witty sense of humor that comes across through writing. I don't have a child of my own (as of yet) nor do I live in England. I live in Oregon and I teach. I also struggle to voice my sense of humor through my writing. I suppose I could write about other people's kids (teenagers). Being in a classroom all day does lead to some interesting stories.

Example:

*A female student of mine, who is coming to terms with her sexuality, has told me that she has a crush on me. (I can honestly say that I never thought the first student to have a crush on me would be female).

I've also been thinking about our upcoming summer excursions, the price of gas, writing thank you notes (we just received four more wedding gifts today - thank you!!!) a baby shower that I'm throwing for a co-worker tomorrow, Leslie's mom who just had a stroke, Barb starting another round of chemotherapy, and on and on....my brain doesn't shut off (and Mark wonders why I toss and turn at night and struggle to sleep).

Anyhow, enough randomness for tonight. Hopefully writing about some of my thoughts will help me rest!