Yippee for longer days and warmer weather and cheap reclining 1970s-reminiscent lime lawn chairs--one of my most recent investments (thank you, Bi Mart, for being the only business still stuck in the 70s). You wouldn't believe how hard it is to find a damn lawn chair for less than fifty bucks, but Bi Mart didn't let us down--for just seventeen bucks, you can get the kind of recliner that allows you to flip over onto your stomach and (if you're as white as me) toast your pathetically pasty hamstrings in the sun. Splendid stuff.
Other good newses:
- We're moving back to Corvallis in June. Why? Because the commute will be about the same time, if not the same distance to drive. I will simply floor it on a rural highway. I am really looking forward to moving back. Eugene is lonely; I never met the right crowd around these parts.
- I'm learning how to sew using my mom's cranky old Husqvarna Viking. So far I've made a flock of pillows (if pillows traveled in groups, they'd be called 'flocks'), as well as an (admittedly rather armpitty) tanktop and about five truly smashing elasticized peasanty tops. The scary part of this newfound artform, though, is that (despite myself) I am ALWAYS attracted to tacky, kitschy-ass Americana or Japanese fabric in colors no human being over five years old should wear. I gravitate toward fabric covered in little illustrations of cupcakes or birds or grazing deer. I make shirts out of electric orange silk that threatens to sizzle onlookers' corneas. And last weekend, I made a seafoam green shirt covered in J. Otto Siebold-ish illustrations of cars.
I fear I may start looking like a kiddie quilt with limbs.
- My film class is really (really) fun. We've looked at race, gender, and film conventions with The Fifth Element; we've examined color and symbolism with Pleasantville; we've examined motif and theories of identity and memory with Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind; we've made Claymation movies and a documentary about our memories of color... it's really a good time had by all, and I'm learning a TON about film production, including all of the tricks of cinematography and editing. The class is full of seniors, and I am a big fan of them. The other teachers say they're a bunch of slackers, but actually, they're really openminded and into experimentation, which is more than I can say for most high schoolers in our rural community.
It's been interesting teaching the seniors this year. I am very attached to them, and in a sense, I feel really responsible for helping them get in to college. Most come from families without a history of attending college, and most are very (very) low-income--with families that make about $30,000 a year, total. I got all of the seniors started early on scholarship applications and college research, and finally some of it's paying off--I had a HUGE victory this week, actually, when one of my most talented students (whose family had kind of resisted college due to monetary reasons) brought his mom to school. Together we applied for the FAFSA and for a local university. It was extremely exciting, because I don't think they would have done it without some intervention... and now he can go to art school, where I know he'll go far. He's more talented than anyone I know.
Still no news about my job status. But apparently Ted Kulongoski wants teachers to work without getting paid anyway, so maybe it won't matter if I get laid off due to budget cuts. I'll be poor whether I work or not. Koo.
Here's my beef with the whole Kulongoski thing: Why single out teachers instead of just having ALL state workers "work for free" for a single day (instead of the week teachers are supposed to sacrifice)? To imply that teachers are expected to be so self-sacrificial completely deprofessionalizes the field of teaching--a field that requires a goddamn masters degree and a heck of a lot of skill (not to mention compassion for humanity). Telling us to "work for free" implies that we're peons whose jobs are less important than other state jobs (what about fish and wildlife, for chrissakes?). It reinforces that teachers should simply martyr themselves for the good of the cause--when most already put way more of their own money, energy, and thought into their jobs than the average person. GARRR. I used to like Kulongoski, but now I would just like to tear him a new one.
Oop, it's dinnertime. That's all I's gots.
Sorry if it's random.
