Hobbies: Grandkids, gardening and church

My grandmother had a stroke last Monday and after a week in a coma, passed away this Monday. It has been a horrible week. We were told to expect her to die at any moment and then by Friday, we were apologetically told that they didn't know why she was still alive. It is honestly the most surreal feeling to pray for someone to die. I spent so much time watching every single tiny breath at the hospital that I don't think I really processed the fact that she was actually dead until it was time for the last goodbye at the coffin before we headed to the cemetery. My grandmother had bypass surgery a few days before Christmas and it went really well. The whole family postponed our traditional Christmas Eve dinner at her house until she was to get out of the rehab hospital. She was very disappointed that she had not been able to buy the great-grandkids presents before the surgery. We decorated her room though for Christmas and my cousin even bought her some leopard-print pajamas that looked fantastic on my 84 year old grandmother. And now she's gone. It feels like a month of my own life has been torn apart like a page from a calendar. All these things planned and expected are gone. I am so balled up in anger for losing her and heart-sad for the Christmas Eves and Easters that we will not have with her anymore. There's a strange joy attached to all these emotions though because I know that she has missed my Pappy terribly and is finally with him again. I am just having such a hard time with this. I know that I should be learning something about the fleeting nature of life from this but I'm really thinking that this damn school year needs to get over with quickly. It has been a helluva year.

Doh or Duh?

Here's a very interesting study about the effects of the Texas Accountability system.

Props to the DMN-I still miss Times Herald though.

A worthy blog from a crappy newspaper.

Prime Time Wishes

Received this from our Office Manager today. This woman is so nice. Don't you wish that it really was a series.

Three businessmen and three businesswomen will be dropped in a high school classroom for one school year and will be provided with a copy of his/her school district's curriculum, a plan book, a key, and a class of 28-32 students. Each class will have a minimum of five learning-disabled children, three with ADD, one gifted child, and two who speak limited English. Three students will be labeled with severe behavior problems.Each business person must complete lesson plans at least 3 days in advance with annotations for curriculum objectives and modify, organize, or create materials accordingly and will be required to teach students, handle misconduct, implement technology, document attendance, write referrals, correct homework, compute grades, complete report cards, document benchmarks, communicate with parents, and arrange parent conferences and must stand in their doorway between class changes to monitor the hallways plus other duties as assigned by the district, the principal, and the assistant principals. They must attend workshops, faculty meetings, department meetings, campus and off-site staff development, and attend curriculum development meetings. They must also tutor students who are behind and strive to get their two non-English speaking children proficient enough to take TX tests. Each day they must incorporate reading, writing, math, science, and social studies into the program, maintain discipline and provide an educationally stimulating environment to motivate students at all times but, if all students do not wish to cooperate, work, or learn, the teacher will be held responsible.There will be no access to vendors who want to take them out to lunch, and lunch will be limited to thirty minutes. They will be permitted to use a student restroom as long as another "survivor" candidate can supervise their class. If the copier is operable, they may make copies of necessary materials before or after school. They must continually advance their education--at their own expense and on their own time.
P. S. So far, the Survivor show has received no applications for the upcoming season.

One thing

It's not that I haven't had a lot on my mind to write about, it's just that I can't seem to come up with decent conclusions for my posts. I therefore have a huge plethora of posts waiting in limbo like ripening literary fruit. One thing though that I must report. Something I never imagined saying to my principal: One of my 9th grade boys tried to get into a brawl with my 7 months pregnant student today. Sigh. I'd bet money that the pregnant student could have taken him though.