Writer's Post: Misdirected Ambition

Many ambitious people strive to be the best, but sometimes ambition can be misdirected. I hope y'all enjoy my post on choice winners for ambition, along with my writer's privilege to stretch the truth. ;-)

 In New Orleans, lives Aevin Dugas who sports overly ambitious hair with the world's largest afro. Her hair measures a circumference of four feet, four inches long. Heck! I have students that size, but I wouldn't want them stuck to my head. Having super-sized hair includes a few problems. For example, once Ms. Dugas got her hair stuck in a car door. After that, her son, who was waiting in the car, thought it was a rat and beat it with his little league glove. At least he didn't have it stuck in his drink like the dude at the bar.


Another winner is a bozo named Scotty Kay who wanted to set the record for getting the most women to kick him in the nuts. At least we don't have to worry about him passing his idiot genes to future generations. Check this out. Is that ambitious or just plane stupid?

And if that isn't enough, here's ambition with Michel Lotito, also known as Monsieur Mangetout, who holds the record for the largest meal ever eaten. This dude ate a Cessna 150 airplane. Unfortunately, after eating the plane, he heard a mysterious voice from his insides. Apparently, he'd accidentally swallowed a passenger who'd fallen asleep and missed deplaning. So the moral of this story–next time you fly–STAY AWAKE!

Wordless Wednesday: Sixth Grade

Can you find me? If not: GOOD!

Maybe you can find the actor who worked at the airport booth in the 

movie Fargo (below). He should have slugged Steve for being so rude.

Please excuse the bad language aimed at my nice classmate!

GBE2: History–Lincoln was Funny

This week's topic–history–is one of my faves; but at the same time, it was hard to narrow my post to one event. In searching historical events online, I remembered Abraham Lincoln who was not only a great leader, but also one of the funniest presidents we've ever elected.

Here are some fun anecdotes about him:

*Once as a young lawyer, several attorneys wrestled outside the court house before a trial. One of the men split his pants causing the others to pass a note asking for money to buy him a new pair of trousers. When the note reached Lincoln, he wrote, "I have nothing to contribute to the end in view."

*A ranking man in the post office, who was a personal friend of Lincoln's, died. A job applicant immediately asked the president if he could take his place?”

“Well,” replied Lincoln. “It’s all right with me if it’s all right with the undertaker.” 

*During the Civil War, Edmund Stanton, the Secretary of War, told Lincoln that General Grant was boozing in his tent.

“Find out what kind of whiskey he is drinking.”

“Why is that, Mr. President?”

“Because I want to send a case of it to my other generals.”

 And finally, here is my favorite story!

*A visitor once asked Lincoln how many men the rebels had in the field. Lincoln replied seriously, “Twelve hundred thousand, according to the best authority.” 

The visitor turned pale and gasped, “Good Heavens!”

Lincoln continued: “Yes, sir; twelve hundred thousand. You see, all of our generals, when they get whipped, say the enemy outnumbers them three to one, and I must believe them. We have four hundred thousand men in the field, and three times four makes twelve. Twelve hundred thousand; no doubt about it.”

Silly Sunday: Teacher Arrested

Not so breaking news:

NEW YORK -- A public school teacher was arrested today at John F. Kennedy International Airport as he attempted to board a flight while in possession of a ruler, a protractor, a set square, a slide rule and a calculator.

 

At a morning press conference, the Attorney General said he believes the man is a member of the notorious Al-gebra movement.

 

He did not identify the man, who has been charged by the FBI with carrying weapons of math instruction. 'Al-gebra is a problem for us', the Attorney General said. 'They desire solutions by means and extremes, and sometimes go off on tangents in search of absolute values.'

 

They use secret code names like 'X' and 'Y' and refer to themselves as 'unknowns', but we have determined that they belong to a common denominator of the axis of medieval with coordinates in every country.

 

As the Greek philanderer Isosceles used to say, 'There are 3 sides to every triangle'.

 

When asked to comment on the arrest, President Bush said, 'If God had wanted us to have better weapons of math instruction, he would have given us more fingers and toes.'

 

White House aides told reporters they could not recall a more intelligent or profound statement by the President.

 

Writer's Post: Making a Difference

This week's Writer's Post topic is making a difference. Here are five things you should know to make a difference:

1.) Before visiting the dentist one has two choices: floss regularly and have a quick visit or don't floss and have some lady jab your sore gums until blood gushes onto her tools and you're screaming, "Holy sh*t!" Flossing makes a difference.

2.)  When coloring hair, put dye on ones roots for ten to fifteen minutes and then put it on the rest of the hair for the remaining time. That way one's hair won't turn bright orange. Not leaving hair dye all over one's head makes a difference in whether one looks like Bozo or not.

3.)  When one has a scab, don't pick. This will keep it from healing and give one a big, ugly boo boo that won't go away–usually on one's face. Not picking scabs makes a difference.

4.)  When one reaches old age, dump the mild kid deodorant for something stronger. Otherwise, one will stink like an old hag. Switching deodorant makes a difference.

5.)  And finally Mitt Romney made a difference for many when he caused them to lose their jobs so he could make money. Watch the video and remember: Who you vote for makes a difference!

Wordless Wednesday: Possessed Dogs

Honey Bear and Ruby

GBE2: Work

This week's GBE2 writing topic is work. For better or worse, here's my take on it:

For over twenty-five years, I've taught intellectually gifted kids in an affluent suburb of Memphis. I've seen dramatic changes in what and how I teach since the eighties. Don't get me wrong, the kids are great other than the fact that they never grow older. They will always be around nine or ten even though I've aged twenty-five years. Yet their parents have grown younger. When I first started teaching parents were old people, so how did they get so young? Scary!

As for gifted curriculum, it used to be if the kids were happy, the parents were happy, and administration was happy too. I only was responsible for meeting the IEP goals which I wrote. Not anymore. It's all about test scores and achievement.

Gone are the days of paper-mache´ puppet shows, fancy tooth pick bridges, or spending 100,000 fictional dollars on the stock market. Today, teaching is all about curriculum. My math lessons follow closely to what the classroom teacher is doing yet tougher. I teach reading lessons, with reading groups that cover novels. At least they still let me pick my novels–sorta. We have a list of board approved books.

I still love my time with the kids, but I miss egg drop competitions that plummeted raw eggs with goofy faces and silly names down shoots into kid designed landing pads. I can do some of the fun stuff, but by golly I better find an SPI objective before I do.

I used to start each class with a Shel Silverstein poem; now, I begin with Daily Grammar Practice. Sounds awful, but it's not bad. The kids' ability to diagram complex sentences is even impressive.

But teaching means unbelievable pressure. We've heard of teachers cheating to raise their students' test scores. I certainly don't condone this behavior nor would I ever cheat on a test; but honestly, I understand where this is coming from. It doesn't matter if you have a Doctorate degree or how long you've been teaching, it's getting to the point that your students better show growth or you could be out of a job.  Do you know of any other profession where a person's bread and butter is dependent on fickle kids?

In Tennessee, every public school teacher has a minimum of three (was supposed to be four) evaluations every year. These evaluations involve massive time commitments and paper work as administrators who are stretched thin enter classrooms to watch us teach. Plus, the same folks are scouring over value added scores. This is a comparison of students' growth on tests from year to year. Mind you, I teach gifted. This means that even though my students' test scores are already in the upper nineties, I need to show growth! However, when it comes to other measures of student achievement, I'm scored on the performance of the entire school. Ie., kids I don't even teach.

Please remember, I love the kids! I love the delight when they understand something new. And I love hearing them laugh when I inject humor into my lessons. However, I'm ready to retire because I'm tired. Typically, I arrive at school between 7:15 and 7:30 and leave sometime between 5:00 and 6:00 in the evening. Many times, I bring my work home with me once I leave. Sure I just had two weeks of vacation, but I spent several hours of it completing special education report cards, writing IEPs, making flip charts for my Promethean board, grading writing, and re-reading chapters for discussion this week. Unfortunately, the pressure on us is so intense that the fun has evaporated. In fact, when my college age daughter took a career placement test to help her find a major, the counselor said, "Be a teacher."

I said, "Don't you dare!" Those who are eligible to retire are doing so in mass... and this is supposed to improve education? What has the government done to my profession? I know my teachers from the 60s and 70s never worked as hard as I do nor did they get blamed when I misbehaved. We are one of the most disrespected professions and have even been blamed for the weak economy because we have too many benefits. I pay for my insurance, and it's not cheap!

November 1, 2017, that's when I'll be eligible to retire... unless our lovely legislators raise the retirement age.

Silly Sunday: Basketball Poles

Pau Gasol - LA Lakers

Rhonda's Silly Sunday pops up quickly (especially when I post by 4:00 on Saturday) and if you're like me, you need something to laugh at on Sunday because Monday comes next. This week will be particularly painful because it ends my vacation.

Watching the Memphis Grizzlies blast the Houston Rockets on Friday night reminded me of a story from years ago.

My husband stood in line at McDonalds in front of NBA basketball player Pau Gasol. At seven feet tall and 250 pounds, one would think he'd be hard to miss; however, a woman cut in front of him in line.

Pau was too polite to say anything so my husband nudged the lady and said, "You just cut in line."

She looked at him and said, "I thought that was a pole."

 For more laughs, check out Silly Sunday links at Laugh Quotes.

Writer's Post: Out With The Old & In With The New

I love Back to the Future movies. Remember when Doc Brown visited thirty years into the future - 2015 - three years from now? He got a total blood and cell replacement and looked just like the Doc Brown of 1985. I'm still searching for that transplant clinic, along with those hover boards, so I can be out with the old and in with the new.

Back to the Future II

Instead, I look thirty years older than I did in 1982... and so does Christopher Lloyd. So if we can't throw out our tired bodies and get new ones, what are we supposed to do? Yeah, I know diet and exercise. I could grow flowers with that broken promise.

Sometimes old is special. After all, I was sorry to see my old dog die, even though I am now in love with an energetic young one. I have my favorite old coffee mugs, and I like old jeans rather than buying new ones made to look old. Why must we always say, "Out with the old and in with the new" come New Year's? Can't we just cuddle up in our old pjs with our old dogs on our saggy laps?

Besides, who says new is better? I have old kids and I'd keep them over your crying infants any day of the week! So out with the old and in with the new– :p. Unless you can find me Doc Brown's blood and cell transfer clinic, I'm not interested.

GBE2: Free Write

This week's GBE2 prompt is called "free write." That means we're supposed to pop out our random thoughts onto the computer without worrying about how stupid it sounds or what boring dribble comes out. Hey! I've got a reputation to keep up.

Boring Clip Art found within 15 min.

In preparation, I had to find a timer. I searched the internet and my widgets only to remember that I already have a cool one that will bark after fifteen minutes. This ought to be fun because my dogs react to barking. In a mere twelve minutes, their furry heads will pop up and they'll look around for a nonexistent dog. However, I won't be able to write about their reaction because my writing time will be up. Sucks for you.

As for now, my kids have a movie on the TV that I could care less about. Which is probably good because if I paid attention they'd be embarrassed. I don't know what's embarrassing about watching movies with your parents. The movie is called "No Strings Attached." I think Ashton Kutcher and Natalie Portman had some kind of sex affair. Maybe it's good that I'm not paying attention if they are bedding it up. Don't worry--my kids are adults, so I'm not a totally awful parent. Kevin Klein is also in this movie. He went to my high school... for about a year, but I never knew him because he's old.

Back on topic: The problem with free write, is that the trash that comes out on the keyboard won't be anything that folks will want to read. And if by some chance you care to read my worthless ramble, I probably won't want to read yours. No offense, but I like posts that are short and focused. With that in mind, I'll spend my last seven minutes revising this post so that it's not totally boring because I have a reputation to keep up. If I publish junk, no one will care to CATCH MY WORDS.

P.S. Ruby's head popped up as she looked for the dog. It was amusing.

Silly Sunday: How I Used My Underwear to Get Healthy

It's not Sunday or even that close but I figure some of you might be busy if I waited to post at my usual time, so here goes early. Besides, it's Sunday in New Zealand where Rhonda starts her Silly Sunday at Laugh Quotes.

 Back in October I injured my knee while running and had to go to physical therapy. One of the many exercises my therapist assigned was the "penguin walk." This involves putting a band around the ankles and taking side steps. Unfortunately, he forgot to give me the band.




So I improvised. I have a pair of elastic underwear that have quite a bit of stretch in them. These came in handy when doing the penguin walk.

If that isn't silly on a Sunday, nothing is.

If you need more silliness than using underwear to exercise, hop over to Rhonda's Silly Sunday.