Happy Birthday to my blog!  Today is the one-year anniversary of the day I started my blog on tangents.org!  And 381 blog posts later, here we are!  So even though I haven’t been able to blog every day, there were a few days when I got more than one post up, and so in a 366 day year (leap year in 2008), I was able to make 381 blog posts, and that averages more than one a day, surpassing my goal I had when I started this thing!  So I’d like to thank everybody who trudges through my rambling garbage – those who have read all 381 My Food Chain Gang blog posts and those who pretend to have read them 🙂

Having this blog has been a great way to vent my feelings (from pride about my kids to my frustrations with Walmart), share news stories I find interesting (from funny police happenings to interesting animal tidbits), write movie reviews, and most importantly, keep in touch with my family and friends who live far away – especially when our lives are too busy to allow us to chat on the phone when we want.  THANKS AGAIN FOR VISITING my site!

Tonight was the first rehearsal for which we had an ORCHESTRA.  And I am pleased to say that it went remarkably well.  We finally started about 7.30 and got to the end of Act I shortly after 9.  Remarkably, we stopped very little although there were some problems with lines but only once or twice did anyone call for a line.  Good, bad, or indifferent we mae it through.  I was even surprised by the young girls playing Agnes and Tootie.  But for getting through the act in just over an hour-and-a-half was remarkable… evn the director said so after she delivered her long list of notes.  The one note she had for Grandpa was the necessity to learn the Scene 2 song which we have not practiced a great deal.

Performing with an orchestra can be a very interesting predicament.  You really have to be on your toes and know where you are in the music.  We were informed that most productions do not get the benefit of the orchestra until the week of a shows opening.  We have 8 rehearsals remaining, but it is STILL great to be on stage taking to heart all the comments and making note to find ways to improve upon the character.  Thursday nights Act II REHEARSAL SHOULD BE JUST AS INTERESTING. 😀

That’s how the saying goes, only it’s talking about children while I’m talking about me.  Welcome to my journey in a deaf and hard-of-hearing classroom.  I always like to joke about how I am monolingual, speak only one language, but even with others from another country, when I talk to them they can usually understand me at least a little.  The problem with subbing in this sort of classroom, I know extremely little sign language.  At least in Spanish, I can tell them I don’t speak Spanish in, er, Spanish (“No hablo español).  Without a translator I am hopeless in a deaf classroom.

This wasn’t the first time I’ve been in one of these rooms.  In fact, I subbed for this same teacher once last year so I knew what to expect.  I arrived there and first thing I noticed was there were no plans.  Sub plans that is- she did have the plans she expected to teach herself.  For the most part, these plans worked out fine.  For two hours in the morning the kids worked on packets called “News-2-You.”  Another teacher in the room for the morning actually taught that.  What did I do in the meantime?  I cut out word cards and laminated book pages, and put together number cards.  They would have had me make copies too, but the machine was taken over by the PTA for the morning.  I did get to teach one lesson though, aided in part by an assistant who was none too happy about being sucked into a translator role.  She was replaced by one much less cold to me about 10-minutes into the lesson (she had to be somewhere else).  I taught the math lesson.  It was an… interesting… experience.  The students were at a lower level than I expected them to be, and I had to skip parts of the lesson and adjust.  Yes, be a real teacher for the hour. 8)

The afternoon was far different from the morning, but I was about as useful.  For most of the afternoon I was in other classrooms acting as the third wheel a teaching assistant for the classes.  I couldn’t help the deaf students mainstreamed in the classes- that was left to an assistant who could sign.  I just walked around, made sure students were working, and in rare instances helped a student or two.  There was a small portion of the afternoon where I was scheduled to teach.  However, when the time rolled around it was myself and the two 6th grade kids (there were two each of 4th, 5th, and 6th-grade kids in her room).  No translator.  Well, scratch teaching.  The cold assistant came in and set them to read for the half hour and then left again.  About 5-minutes later a translator came in, sent by one of the assistants or a teacher as she said she normally wasn’t in the room.  Lesson time?  Nope.  I didn’t have the materials for the lesson, so they continued reading before going off to speech at 2:30, leaving me to act as an assistant again in the 4th grade room where the two 4th-graders were mainstreamed for the afternoon.

All-in-all it was an easy, unexciting day.  Compared to my time in this room last year, it went great.  I remember some dramatic moments, one where a student swore at me in sign language- not that effective since I didn’t understand and he was seen by the teaching assistant, but strange just the same.  I also saw one of my weekend kids in the hall.  When I call him up this week- I’m calling all of my two small groups to remind them of rewards week- I’m sure he’ll want to talk about it.

It seems that taking a few days off from this blog caused a bit of concern from a couple of friends. I know I hit 50 and it is all downhill from there. 😉

For those who desire to know, I have been spending a bit less time on the computer and working on the lines I need for The Lion in Winter. Last Sunday was the first complete rehearsal without books. I was trying to get all my lines in place before then. I had most of them, but had problems with two scenes. I got through the Sunday rehearsal Ok, so by the start of the show I should be very comfortable. Now that is a bit of a concern for me, because I’ve never been this comfortable with my lines this early. Now, I did know most of the lines for one other show I was in, but because of the role, I was never completely comfortable with them. I really feel comfortable with these lines, that is different and a bit of a worry for me. Really, that is a good thing, I never want to be comfortable in a role. The bit of nervousness gives a role its life.

I am also working on a complete list of my 50 most important life moments. It was much harder than I thought. I’ve had so many important things happen in my life, and it has been difficult to put them in some sort of order.

Back to the lines…

That all I have to say… That’s it! WHERE THE HECK IS JOHN!?!?

Unlike my Steve Wilkos show discovery, the following revelation is a great one!  My daughter brought home a Weekly Reader from school – you know, it’s like a newspaper for kids.  We used to get those when I was in school too, and I really enjoyed them.  So we’re sitting in the waiting area of H & R Block waiting for my husband to get our taxes done, and my 9-year-old daughter says to me, “Mom, did you know that they found an animal that they haven’t seen for, like, a really long time?  They thought there weren’t any more left in the world!  It looks like a Furby!”  We talked about extinction for a little bit, and then my daughter said she couldn’t remember what the animal was called or where they found it.  So when we got home, she showed me the Weekly Reader, and I found that she was talking about the pygmy tarsier.  Scientists believed this type of primate went extinct because no one had seen any specimens for about 70 years, but they recently found two males and a female tarsier alive in Indonesia.  The animals each weigh only about 2 oz.!

So yes, it’s safe to say this is a much better discovery for me than the Steve Wilkos show.  Here’s hoping the pygmy tarsier can re-populate and once again establish itself as a thriving species!  And thanks to the Weekly Reader which has been publishing great kid-oriented articles for decades.  These stories help youngsters develop many different kinds of interests in the world around them!

“Some say if he walks like a duck and talks like a duck, he is a duck.  We say if he walks like a duck and talks like a duck, he will be the next President of the United States.”

I realize that this post is just a few months overdue, but I just could not pass it up. This afternoon, my three-year-old niece brought me two books to read to her. It was approaching rehearsal time so I told her I only had time to read one and I would read the other later.  “Duck for President,” by bestselling children’s author Doreen Cronin with illustrations by Caldecott Award winner Betsy Lewin, is a charming way to introduce the pre-school set to the election process.  There is even an entire website devoted to Duck and a campaign ad paid for by Farm Animals for a Change.   Apparently, General Mills donated copies of the 2004 book to the little children.  The story illustrates the plight of animals on Farmer Brown’s farm who are tired of doing chores.  One day, Duck stages an election to see who the animals want to lead and wins!  However, the ambitious quacker does not stop there.  However, as Duck progresses on his way to the top of the government ladder, he just may find that life on Farmer Brown’s farm “taking out the trash, mowing the lawn, and grinding coffee beans” is better than the grind of being the big goose in a white house.

Though I wouldn’t call it a great discovery, by any means…  Every few months, I go through a period of insomnia that lasts a few days.  I don’t know why this happens, but it starts when I stay up too late a few nights in a row, waiting for my kids to go to bed and then having too much fun to go to bed myself.  Then for some reason, I start waking up early in the morning and am unable to fall back asleep, and the more tired I get, the less easy it is for me to sleep and the cycle continues.  So anyway, a few weeks ago, during one of these bouts of insomnia, I was flipping channels and I came across the Steve Wilkos show.

In case you don’t know (and I hope you don’t) Steve Wilkos is best known for being the main bodyguard on the Jerry Springer show – a talk show that aired in the ’90’s that was a total raunch fest.  The show pushed the limits of television at the time and helped to give talk shows an even worse reputation than they already had.  Nearly every episode of the Jerry Springer show  contained bleeped-out profanity, guests taking their clothes off (censored for tv thank goodness) and brawling.  It was a disgusting example of junk tv and helped give birth to the term “trailer trash”.  And Steve Wilkos had a big part to play.  As the main bodyguard, he would have to break up the fights, often climbing in between scantly-clad (if that) guests as they tried to duke it out on the stage.  As his popularity rose, the audience would often chant Steve’s name as he broke up the fights with his trademark smirk and chrome dome.  And how do I know this?  Well, I was a college student at the time, and I guess I’ll reluctantly admit to being present as some of my friends would get a big kick out of this show and watch it in their dorm room.

So anyway, the other night, it was really late, and I thought I must be hallucinating when I came across Steve the bodyguard from the Jerry Springer show hosting his own talk show here in 2009.  And it didn’t seem to be like the Jerry Springer show…  no fights, no swearing, no nudity…  Just Steve, the ex-Chicago cop complete with his thick Chicago accent, trying to work out life’s problems for his “lucky” guests…  He doesn’t seem very natural in front of the camera, and I don’t know whose idea it was to give this guy his own show…  What is this (tv) world coming to?  Check it out for yourself, if you dare!  And, just for kicks, here is a link to some classic Jerry Springer moments someone put up on youtube; I’m NOT embedding that garbage on my blog – you can just click on the link if you really want to see it.  Where has the former-mayor-of-Cincinnatti-who-wrote- a-check-to-a-prostitute-and-got-caught been these days anyway?

Tonight, I offered to sit with four of the best kids ever (I’m not going to be biased… since I do have several nieces and nephews who also qualify).  My friends had yet to see the theatre’s hilarious production of Over the Tavern so I said I would be happy to watch the little ones.  After rehearsal, I headed over and we went to dinner before the show.  By dinner’s end, the two youngest had zonked out.  I was slightly worried about Dis but I knew that “Goose” would help with her if the need presented itself.  Some of the highlights included artistry courtesy of the aquadoodle… very nice, no mess as the special markers only work on the mat.  We also had a session of school (I actually remember playing school? growing up).  The three of us later settled down to watch the Disney version of Tarzan.  Shortly after changing Beeber’s soaked diaper, C&L got back to find Sammers (surprise, surprise… but honestly, she was great) being the sole survivor until moments later when Dis decided to reawaken (hopefully, she did not keep them up too long).

A bit later, I asked if they had heard about Joaquin Phoenix’s interview on David Letterman a few nights ago.  Really, it made the Farrah Fawcett interview of a few years ago look good.  Dave even commented that they owed Farrah an apology.  Honestly, I’m not sure whether or not Joaquin’s “absence” was chemically induced or he is just REALLY not comfortable giving interviews.  Whatever the case, the segment is sure to cause a great deal of controversy for sometime.

Just had a very fun evening being a kid.

I bookended my three days in elementary (Tuesday was in a mentally impaired classroom) with middle-school jobs at the same school.  Monday I subbed for a specialty teacher who teaches a course about cultures.  I am not sure what it entails, but is a separate course from the normal history/social studies courses.  Being a specialty course there are two classes each of grades 6-8.  Actually, 8th grade is a completely different course from the other two grades, so I guess the cultural studies is only for the two grades.  8th grade was a course on business- they were making products and campaigns.  It wasn’t too exciting a day.  The 8th grade classes were working independently in their groups so I just walked around and watched mostly, occasionally giving some input.  6th grade had videos, and 7th grade had a test.  The highlight was 6th grade, before the videos.  I got to read them stories with problems they had to find solutions for, like for example a couple of kids who wanted to build the largest snowman their town had seen.  They did eventually build it, and without special equipment (you know how heavy even a normal snowman can be- just think back to the last time you made one and had to push those large balls to become bigger ones, then lift two sections into place on a traditional snowman).  They had to figure out that the kids built a ramp out of snow to push the giant balls up to form the head and body, then tore it down after the snowman was done.  It was really interesting to hear some of their solutions like making the sections by throwing snowballs at a smaller one until it was big enough, or the snowman was laying down.

So that was Monday.  Friday I was down the hall in a different multi-age room.  It wasn’t one grade at a time- each class was mixed.  It was ELL, so the classes were according to their ability in English.  My largest class was six students.  What made this ELL class different was the large variety of cultures represented.  Rather than 95% Hispanic, the students were from Poland, Albania, Taiwan, Korea, and several other places in addition to Mexico.  They ranged in ability from new to English to lived in the US all their lives (what were they doing in ELL??) with immigrant parents.  The students were all very good, willing to learn.  There were only a couple of chatterboxes, but even they worked.  The classes consisted of three writing classes abtly called Writing I, Writing II, and Writing III.  These classes all had a writing prompt and spent the period making an organizer, writing a paragraph or more, then editing and finally sharing their pieces.  Two of the classes were literacy courses and we read stories together, went over vocabulary, then they made sentences from the vocabulary words and worked on packets about the story for the rest of the time.  The last class was a class of just one.  This was the student who knew very little English.  We worked on a noun packet together.

Either of those two classes I would sub for again in an instant.  That ELL class was completely unlike the one at the other school in behavior.  In actuality I had another ELL class at the other middle school in the district last year that was similar, but a little crazy due to an assembly.  Like this one, I had a period where I worked with just one student.  In that case it was an Italian student instead of the Korean student at Friday’s school.  Both kids were really great to work with.  Overall Friday was more pleasant even than that day.

Well, Monday will be an off day due to Presidents Day.  I remember when I was in school we actually got two days off in February for Washington’s and Lincoln’s birthdays, but in the 80s they combined the two into a general day to celebrate all Presidents.  I felt cheated when this happened.  A year or two later they added a day off for Casimir Pulaki (I think that’s how it’s spelled) but that didn’t last more than a couple of years.  I’m still not sure who Pulaski was.  In any event, I’m not sure what my next post will be about.  I’ll figure it out I suppose.

EDIT: Oops- forgot a title!