you're only as loud as the noises you make

2 stories:

1. my dad flew home from a meeting in florida last night and got bumped up to first class. according to him, the best part about it was that his travelling companion and colleague was stuck in coach. so like a badass, midway through the flight my dad walked back to his friend with a glass of wine and said "i can't believe it, there's some lady up there who thinks she can play the piano AND sing at the same time."

2. spring break is less than two weeks away and i'm realizing just how much i will miss my kids next year. even with all the difficulties and trials, i feel extremely lucky to be working with this group of students. some of these little ones just touch my soul in a way that makes my life feel truly meaningful. next year will be difficult without my little girl who comes into my room every morning just to say hi and wish me a good day. or my brilliant little goth boy who has an amazing sense of humor and will do absurdly beautiful things with his life. or my girl in 7th period red days who has instructed me in the finer points of having "a black mama." forget that, i'll miss my entire 7th period red day class. or my boys who come in after lunch repeating "miss maaaaaaaahaaaaaaaaaaaan" over and over until i think i'll scream. or the kids who try to get me to do the heel toe. or my kids who initiated me into their gang "the smilies." or my entirely too polite little boy with a heart-melting sense of innocence who calls himself T3.

anyway, the past two weeks they really have been one of the biggest sources of joy in my life. even today when i felt like i was teaching preschool instead of high school, it was a motherly frustration that pulled me through. i know next year will bring new joys, but i will never forget my first 130 kids.

why she's my best friend...

It's difficult, at times, to see the light through the dark. It's difficult to look at all of the wonderful, beautiful things that life has to offer us when going through a heartache. So I will remind you:
You are Martha Anne.
You are beautiful.
You are loved by God.
You have an amazing family that will support and love you for the rest of your life.
You have an even more amazing friend named Tess who is here to remind you just how much you mean to her:)
You are a teacher and role model to lots of little thugs who don't have that beauty, care, and love at home.
You are ambitious, and that drive will take you wherever you want to go in life...so long as it's not too far away from me.
You are a truly wonderful and selfless friend
You are far better off w/o someone who makes you cry and makes you wish for something more.
You are beautiful.
I hope that these helped...even if only for a minute b/c no one deserves your tears. God doesn't put us through situations unless He knows we will make it to the other side. And you will. Maybe not today. But you will, because you are Marfa.
I love you, Tessie

unrequited

my life this week has consisted of work, angry chick music, extreme emotions and sleep. monday night i ended a relationship that was entirely confusing (complicated was his favorite word) and emotionally draining. there never was true certainy on where we stood, just that we were not a real couple. however, i had shared more of myself with this guy than i have with any other member of the male sex. i felt that he understood me better than the vast majority of people. i let my guard down and opened myself up to him freely. as usual, that turned out to be a mistake on my part. after a discussion about our opposing views of the future of the relationship, i decided that we were only headed towards my broken heart...a shorter trip than i realized at the time.

in a overwhemingly difficult but brilliant move, i've cut off all contact with him. that step is never easy. i find myself staring at my phone, willing him to call. sadly, i have still failed to develop that skill.

i think the toughest part of all this is that it makes me want to build up even larger walls around myself. i've gone through all this before, but the pain increases every time and this is no different. God have mercy on any guy who tries to connect with me now. the chip has been placed firmly back on my shoulder and i'm not quite sure when it will come back down. sometimes i think that old saying "it's better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all" was written by someone who had done neither. losing a best friend is not something you quickly heal from, but i'm learning to try.

out in the west texas town of el paso

a mexican dude once taught my dad how to knife fight.

camera challenged

my favorite baby and me. we had some problems looking at the camera together.

first attempt to look at the camera
Originally uploaded by marmahan.

try it again
Originally uploaded by marmahan.

final attempt
Originally uploaded by marmahan.

perhaps beauty is best left on its own

gorgeous smile
Originally uploaded by marmahan.

standardized crap

the most pressing issue in the world of texas teaching right now: the dreaded TAKS test. well, at least it is in everyone else's classrooms apparently. i knew when i was hired at my school that standardized testing was a big focus for us largely because our scores are so low. much of our school's performance is simply inherent to rural, low-income schools. i could go into catalogs of reasons for poor performance: low levels of parental education, low english proficiency, overinflated emphasis on sports, an utter lack of student motivations, the simple and sad cycle of life/poverty in small towns. but whatever the reason, our kids just aren't passing the test. at the same time, public school, and in turn teacher, performance is being increasingly tied to standardized testing.

i loathe the TAKS test. to me it represents a complete disruption of the education system. because things like school funding and essentially teacher's jobs are dependent on school's scores, teachers abandon teaching content and begin to "teach the test." i discovered last week that every other teacher in my department has been focusing solely on the TAKS test since we came back from the break (i.e. administering practice tests and teaching the "tricks" of the test). i've also been told that after my kids finish the test, they'll think that my class is over.

perhaps i am naive or simply an idiot, but i refuse to center my school year around a state mandated test. my plan for the year is based on introducing my kids to meaningful literature and film while trying to deepen their understanding of our language. i do not believe that a multiple choice assessment with a personal narrative attached to the end measures their comprehension of materials. it most certainly does not accurately appraise the quality of my teaching. something i was told in a grad school, and that i firmly believe, is that there is no causal relationship between teaching and learning. there may be a correlation, but there will always be some kids who flat out refuse to learn, even from the best teacher.

so what AM i doing to prepare my kids for the inevitable? i plan on giving a little pep talk about how the test is one of those unavoidable evils in life for them. whether we like it or not, they have to pass to graduate so they might as well just suck it up and give it their best.

as for myself, i will never judge my school year based on how many kids passed the TAKS. what i believe to be infinitely more important are the moments when i listened to a girl cry, or talked kids out of a fight, or showed my students they can trust me as an authority figure. after all, they won't remember how i taught them adverbs or literary devices, but they will remember my devotion to them.

plan for the week: having finished dante's inferno, we're watching "life is beautiful" and giving the finger to the man. i love it.

the look

today i had a lovely conversation with two of my classes. the note i got from their sub friday was depressing. when i read it i felt like the worst teacher in the world. my kids had honestly embarrassed me with their complete lack of maturity and respect. the subsitute basically said she felt sorry for anyone else who had to watch my classes. it was as though my own children had visited a friend's house and insulted their cooking and then peed on their carpet.

thankfully, a quick visit with my department head informed that the sub herself doesn't behave much better than my kiddos. (she personally insulted one of my girl by calling her fat....and then wrote it IN THE NOTE TO ME.) all the same, i believe that they should learn to be respectful regardless of the behavior they receive from the sub. a rude comment, after all, doesn't give them license to behave like miscreants. (which is actually a line from my speech today. using their vocabulary words while scolding them - priceless.)

so when my students walked in the door today, they already knew they were in for it. in fact, one of my boys, who misbehaves pretty regularly, even stopped in before school to see how much trouble they would be in. i put on my best teacher face and went into a schpeel (spelling?) about appropriate behavior. i told them i was disappointed, that they were better than how they acted and that they had displayed a real lack of maturity. now this is the shocking part: eyes dropped to the floor, heads nodded in ashamed agreement and a mood of sadness overcame the room. the "i'm disappointed in you" speech actually had the same effect on two classes. maybe i don't suck at this too much afterall.......

straight hustlin

over the past few weeks i've been "teaching" dante's inferno to my kiddos. i thoroughly enjoyed the book when i read it as a high school senior but my love for it has been reawakened with a vengeance. writers like dante baffle me with the intricacies of their language. he weaves such a vivid and rich tapestry of words that amazes me at every turn. thankfully, quite a few of my young learners feel at least mildly the same way.

as we read every day and then review how far we've come, someone almost always comments that there really should be a modern film version of the tale. i, of course, am simultaneously one of the strongest proponents and critics of the idea. one of my girls actually suggested today that I make the movie. i assured her that if i had any kind of access to a film studio i'd be all over that in a second. if done correctly, the film would be a visual masterpiece (not to mention a blockbluster). however, i really think that the only hollywood studios that could actually afford to make a decent version would inevitably f it up royally. the final result would have sylvester stalone battling it out with satan while saving the non-existent female lead. beside that, i would hate to think that people would stop reading the work of art created 700 years ago just out of laziness.

so yeah. i guess the point of this post is that if anyone has a hook up i can use to make one hell of a movie, go ahead and let me know. i'd probably even let you stay at my villa in the italian countryside someday in return for the favor. or not. it's whatever.

one wish

back from a trip to austin/cs that was entirely too brief. trips like that generally do a couple of things to me: make me really happy while i'm there and relatively bummed when i return. i got to spend time with a few of my favorite guys who i miss dearly. sometimes i think i grow too complacent about the distance separating me from them, but it only takes one trip to remember why i care for them so much.

on top of the lovely company, i got to spend a tiny amount of time in my favorite city. there's just something about austin that warms my heart. i'm really hoping that everything will work out and i'll be living there by june. but for now, i'm stuck back in a sometimes awkward situation in lubbock. the thing that will suck about leaving this place again is that tess won't be heading in the same direction. it's weird, but even after being apart for 5 years of college i still think this second goodbye will be extremely trying for me. it's so rare that we find others who can understand us so fully and love us so unconditionally. thankfully i know certain friendships will always stand steady through the trials life throws at us. all the same, it'd be so simple if i could just scoop up all the people i love and squish them into one pleasant little city. who knows, i may end up doing a few rounds of kidnapping to make my wishes come true. (you know who you are. don't say you haven't been warned)

so those are the things weighing on my mind while others gorge themselves on lard and professional football. that and the exam i have to finish writing for thursday.

last thing, a little movie recommendation for you. i suggest renting grizzly man. it's good for a laugh.