Friday, February 23, 2007

On respect

I hear that a lot from my students.

There's only one problem. Even though they may not put it in these words...they demand respect from everyone but won't show respect to a person if that person doesn't respect them. Now tell me? How is that supposed to fly?

It doesn't.

I had two boys literally on each other today and at least one punch thrown.

My group for club is not the best but I'll leave it at that.

Here's my dilemna.

Most if not all of the behavior problems at work come from the root of pride and protecting one's own. You would never believe how angry these kids can get when another says something about the mother. "Your mama" to the extreme.

Their defense when I confront them is always "Well he said..." or "She hit me first..." or... you get the picture.

I think I could talk to them until I'm blue in the face and tell them repeatedly that if someone says or does something unkind to them they walk away and tell the teacher. (Doing something kind in return would be an absolute miracle in the true sense of the word.)

They get this stuff at home too. That's what their parents tell them to do--hit back that is.

Who knows. I guess I just needed to vent.

Coming soon. My short story.

Tuesday, February 20, 2007

On being sick

I have often said that I make one of the worst patients. I absolutely hate being sick.
I was in bed pretty much all day yesterday because if I got up I'd start to feel nauseous.

I still don't feel that well today which is why I'm at home and not at school. I'm trying to catch up on homework...seeing as how I accomplished absolutely nothing.

This is a blah post but I wanted to get out a little bit.

Tuesday, February 13, 2007

On writing papers

I know that I’ve had a post similar to this before but bear with me. If I remember correctly, I think I’m heading in a different direction than that post.

I’ve always considered myself to be better at writing fiction than nonfiction or at least I should say that I feel much more comfortable writing fiction than nonfiction. I remember the one time I had to write an article when I was on staff of my high school newspaper...pure torture. Sure, no one had any problems when I was done with it but the process was most certainly torture.

Almost every time I write a paper of any significant length for a class I feel the same way. (Magnify that feeling ten times for my senior history paper last semester). I remember thinking that my freshman English paper was junk and completely inadequate in so many different areas when I handed in. On a rough draft where the average score on the return (and this is average of the student body mind you) is in the D range imagine my surprise when I receive back a paper with the score of 57/60. A. I still didn’t think it was adequate enough but of course I wasn’t about to argue with the grade.

Bringing this in relation to the present.

I am in the midst of the torture sessions in writing all of my papers this semester. (Although I got a big relief this morning when I found out that my Linguistics paper could be written in English...and the presentation too :D... writing papers in a second language is not fun lol).

If I let myself think about all that I have to do and the caliber that I want my end result to be I could very easily become overwhelmed.

Perhaps I bring this all on myself. I can’t help but set the bar high. I think that something inside of my knows that I need to set the bar high in order to keep myself motivated and working. That way, when it all comes back I won’t be utterly disappointed because there was plenty of room to fall before I got below the critical level.

Does that make sense?

I’m sitting here at my computer with my head on my shoulder as I type wondering if that past sentence will seem as confusing to anyone else as it does to me. :D

It’s late so forgive me.

We’ll see how things go.

A minor note (of hope!): I counted the actual class days left until the end of the semester (excluding weekends, and exams and such) and discovered that if my calculations are correct... less than fifty class days remain of my college career! Hah... I think I’ll be doing more than a few of those calculations as the day draws nearer.

(I’ll be getting close to my Hispanic/Mexican roots too... I graduate on May 5th.)

Saturday, February 10, 2007

On the scene of conflict

Here it is. Let me know what you think.
I don't like using the terminology "ex" but my teacher wanted us to establish the relationship right up front and that was the only way I could do it and not go over my word count.

“What are you doing here?” Victoria asked. All of her muscles tightened in fear when she looked at her ex. She refused to acknowledge him by name.

“Come on, Vicky,” he said. “Let me in.” He slipped his hand around the partially open door.

“My name is Victoria.” Each word sprung from her lips like bullets. She resisted the urge to slam the door on his hand and hurt him like he’d hurt her. How dare he come here? She thought. How dare he show his face after what he’s done?

“Whatever.” He rolled his eyes and tried to push the door open farther.

Victoria placed her foot against the base of the door. He stepped away.

“I’ve always called you Vicky.” He said as he ran his fingers through his blonde hair.

Freshly highlighted, no doubt, she thought.

“My name is Victoria, not Vicky,” she said. “You didn’t answer my question. Why are you here?” She didn’t look in his eyes.

“Uh...your hair looks kinda wet.” He avoided her question again. “Did you just get out of the shower?”

“Chad!” His name escaped her lips before she could think. Victoria covered her mouth and looked up. His green-gray eyes held her captive just like before.

He smiled with those perfectly formed lips. “I knew I could get you to say my name.” He leaned back and stuck his hands in the pocket of his jeans.

He thinks I’m going to let him in, thought Victoria. That’ll never happen. She’d slam the door in his face if he so much as stepped towards it. She looked at the full glass pane. An image of shattered glass and his face beneath the shards flashed before her. Why can’t he just leave before I start acting like him? she thought.

He smacked his lips. “Nice place you’ve got here. Why haven’t I seen it before?”

Anger seethed within Victoria like the copper pot she just put on the stove.

“I work here,” she said barely keeping the lid on the pot. “You’d better leave before I call the police.”

He laughed and fingered the fringe of that red and blue-checkered shirt he always wore.

Victoria slammed the door and twisted the gold-colored lock. She saw his mouth drop open as he stepped toward the door. Victoria grabbed her phone from the table behind her. When she looked up, he was gone.

Thursday, February 08, 2007

On writing short stories

For Creative writing the next large project (I think...a fiction essay is mentioned on the syllabus but I don’t know what that entails) is the short story in two drafts (rough and final of course).
I haven’t written very many short stories over the course of my writing career. Perhaps that is because I don’t read many of them. I’m not exposed to them. I’ve been reading full length novels for most of my life.
Be that as it may... I have to write a short story and I am almost completely stumped as to an idea. Actually as I sit here and type this an idea that I had earlier just returned to me. (I think I’d forgotten it...help me remember Juliette and her father) Anyhoo...
We read a past student’s work today in class (who just happens to bear the name of the university but is not the president :D) and it was pretty good. There were some overall aspects that I didn’t like but could easily learn to deal with them. I absolutely loved the second scene. But one of my biggest problems with the whole thing was the way the story neatly rose and fall. Everything wasn’t resolved of course as a less talented writer may have been tempted to do but something in my craves a full story...novel length.
We’ll see how this project goes.
I almost forgot that I was going to post my scene of conflict. I’ll do that for the next post.

Tuesday, February 06, 2007

On first tests

I have several of those this week.
One format I really like. My Early National Era teacher gave us the questions a week ago. I'll be e-mailing my essays in to her tomorrow probably. (I'd like to look over them once more).
Other formats I'm not fond of but I have to deal with them.
Tests in this category:
Spanish Lit...tomorrow (I've had her tests before so I know kind of what to expect)
History of Africa...Thursday (This is the scariest one...I'm not at all sure what to expect and my brain kind of gets fried just thinking about it)
Spanish Linguistics...Friday (I'm not sure how this one's going to go but we have a day devoted to review tomorrow)

Now that I've listed all these out for you I do have a point. Wow! (Sorry...I feel sarcastic at the moment and I have no idea why :D)

There's something about the first test that is utterly terrifying yet reassuring. It's terrifying in the sense that I have no idea what to expect but reassuring in the fact that I will prepare as much as I possibly can for the test and if I do poorly it's because I didn't know how to prepare for that teacher. Still, I don't like to do poorly.

Honestly, that's the only little bit of profundity I have in my brain at the moment. Next time I come I'll post my scene of conflict assignment from Creative Writing. (That's a funny thing... I said I would try to tackle it and make it the best I possibly could...prove her wrong... well, all of my Creative Writing assignments have gotten pushed to the bottom of the totem pole. Hah. We'll see how it goes)

Thursday, February 01, 2007

On South Carolina winter weather

Today has been such an answer to prayer.
Even though I often laugh at how South Carolinians respond to even the chance of snow (if the power goes out, the milk is going to be the first thing to go :D) I really appreciate the day off that it gave me today.

At school today was supposed to be the Day of Prayer but because of the chance of inclement weather the administration made the decision ahead of time to make the Day of Prayer/half Day of Rest into a full Day of Rest (I know... shock). They would rather reschedule the Day of Prayer for later in the semester and have everyone able to attend rather than miss all of the town students.

That alone caused great rejoicing in my heart. Why? Because I got to sleep in. :D The busier I become... the older I become... the more I appreciate the occasional day of sleeping in.

Then, this morning when I awoke to find that there actually was snow on the ground (and on the street most especially) I pretty much figured that the public schools would also be canceled and I wouldn't have to work today either. :D Yup. That indeed was the case.

I now have almost a second Saturday this week. How lovely is that?

On days like this when there is actually snow on the ground I almost wish that I lived slightly further north where there would be snow on the ground more often and where the snow would stay longer but I honestly don't wish that. I always remember how much I don't like the cold (my fingers take double the amount of time as the rest of my body to warm up and they get cold twice as fast).

Who knows? Perhaps God will have me teaching somewhere up north in a few years. Hah... now wouldn't that be a riot.

Enjoy this day of lovely "winter" weather.