rustypants speaks

it’s christmas day and a very merry christmas to all of you.

so i’ve been asked: Where The Heck Are You?

and the answer: at sharonville elementary, at xavier, at home being a husband!

winter break is upon us and as i’ve not kept up with my writing online, here’s a stream of consciousness for you…

• 11 days off – woowoo!! gosh, i don’t think i’ve needed an 11 day break from life and responsibility like this in a long time!
• special ed continues to rock at sharonville – literally and figuratively. working in the 4th – 5th grade intermediate ED (emotionally disturbed) unit never fails to be cool, frustrating, invigorating and overwhelming. where else can you be hugged, be told you’re someone’s favorite teacher, get called a fatass bastard MF’er, put a kid in the timeout room, write an “agreement” with a kid not to do ___________ (fill in the blank with your favorite bad thing here), eat authentic school cafeteria food and sit in on an IEP meeting and be told you’re not serving someone’s kid appropriately all in the same day?
• first semester of grad school ended wednesday – and not a day too soon. i’m exhausted. is xavier hard? no. is it time consuming? heck yes. the end result looks like this: two definite A’s and a third class that is probably an A; phonics and the foundations of literacy has convinced me to look into changing my major to Reading Specialist; i don’t want to go back for another semester – i’m tired and can’t imagine another three years of this.
• i’ve spoken with several folks about changing my major to Reading and the first comment every time is: well, you’ll never be without a job if you stay with Special Education. my response is: yeah, but i don’t want to do something i’m not going to like – 3-4 YEARS of grad school just to end up in a job that i don’t want to do for the rest of my life…. haha, well, that’s what i did with my undergrad degree. let’s not make the same mistake again.
• and this all leads to insecurity and doubt as i think to myself, “dude – you’re 38 years old – how long are you going to keep screwing around??” how much longer CAN i screw around, really? wouldn’t it be great if i just knew for certain what i wanted to do from this point on?
• so why get out of special ed? being back in special ed for the last year has shown me one thing, if nothing else: programs like No Child Left Behind and the Ohio testing standards screw my kids over, leading to ridiculous pronouncements from the districts like, “all students must be fully included in all their regular education classes” to which i have to SCREAM AT THE TOP OF MY LUNGS that THIS DOESN’T WORK FOR ALL STUDENTS YOU STUPID IDIOTS!!!! this is why all special ed kids have INDIVIDUALIZED EDUCATIONAL PROGRAMS (IEP’s) written specially for them!!! my hands get tied when it comes to actually educating kids at their present levels and with my ED kids, who are already struggling emotionally, this adds one more thing for them to feel like shit about.
• the iPod continues to rock my socks. 400+ CD’s loaded, more on the way. truth is, i’ve slowed down a bit to actually LISTEN to some of the new stuff being put on there. latest favorites? well, the cowboy junkies are still up there, along with toad the wet sprocket, natalie merchant, vince guaraldi’s charlie brown christmas album, robert cray’s some rainy morning album, india.arie, leonard bernstein’s beethoven symphonies 2 & 7, sarah mclachlan has also entered the charts along with keith jarrett’s carnegie hall concert.
• our friends amanda and jeff are down in gulf shores alabama and i’m insanely jealous. this time last year we were in pensacola on what was the best vacation we’ve ever had. we had talked about going down again this year but wanted also to be with family and the break wasn’t as long this time. we DO have the condo reserved for the week of spring break in april. it’s one of the only things keeping me sane.
• i’ve got too many books in the queue to read. lise got me lemony snicket’s 13 volume series of unfortunate events, a couple david mccullough non-fictions, frank mccourt’s teacher man, marley and me, through painted deserts, vera, the new stephen king book, and offers of more from others.
• lise and i went and looked at christmas lights tonight. indian hill / madiera = good area to look at lights. we do this every year and it never gets old. we have a very perverted rating system of whether a house gets thumed up or thumbed down. what fun we have!
• lise asked me tonight what i would do with $10,000,000 if we had everything else taken care of and investments in place – what would i spend the money on. i told her i’d find some youth groups in the cincinnati area that need some money and set up some trusts / funds for them, then buy a house on the beach in pensacola, a new Saturn and a kick-ass stereo system.
• dolby went with us tonight to look at lights and let me tell you: being tossed around in the backseat for a couple hours while your owners look at stupid lights on houses = one unhappy dog. note to self: next year, leave the dog at home.
• i wonder, at late hours like this, if dolby would have had more fun if he could see in color instead of only black and white.
• the picture of dolby to the right was taken this past week. the look on his face seems to indicate that he knew he was going to be dragged around tonight and was getting a head start on looking sad.
• a year after leaving the ministry, how have things squared up? well, i do miss the kids and the guys and gals i worked with in the youth ministry team. i miss teaching and sharing the gospel with teenagers who i believe are desperate for answers. i miss the atmosphere. i don’t miss the counseling. i don’t miss the every-night-something-is-going-on feeling. i don’t miss the long weekends. i don’t miss inept leadership on behalf of the rest of the church. i don’t miss playing games in order to get things done. i don’t miss the disgust of dealing with folk who make me ashamed to be a Christian. it’s been more of a relief than i expected, being able to spend more time with lise, get into grad school, not worry about images and the game of corporate Christianity.
• if i could do things over again, what would i do differently? let’s not play that game.
• things are good. i’m exhausted from life, but that’s not always a bad place to be. i tend to go one of two ways – i’m overly busy and thus spend less time obsessing over crap, or i’m not busy enough and start to second-guess everything and wonder why ________________ (fill in the blank with your biggest insecurity or fear here).
• my wife? she rocks. we celebrated 16 years together this month. i’d do it again.

be well and hope you had a wonderful christmas!