For You Know Who

I just wanted to let you know that you are on my mind, because you can be so kind.
I hope the words might be worthwile, and maybe even make you smile.
Everyday when i get home, I realize that I'm alone.
Sure, Sadie and Lily are there, but i can not find you anywhere.
and speaking of Sadie, she such a sweet angel true, and even sweet baby Lily too.
But this poem is not for them, but for you. this is my ode to you know who.

My New Nickname

Yesterday was a busy day for me. I had a lot going on at school and worked really hard to keep the kiddos motivated and interested in learning about the "conflict in Vietnam". After school I had to drive a couple of the students to moot court practice at our local HBCU, then dash over to the Y to put in my laps at the pool and then make it back to school for an event called "family literacy night", where I(and some students) dazzled some parents with the wonderful things we have been doing in class.

But that's not what's important. What's important is what happened at the swim. I swam 2500 yards, or 50 laps, or 100 lengths of the pool. It's a little over a mile. I have swam this distance several times. But, yesterday I swam it 3 minutes faster than normal. No, I wasn't trying to. I was just cruising along at a comfortable pace. I guess these workouts are paying off. The beauty of it was not only that I did it faster, but that it seemed more effortless. I felt fine afterwards. And so, A new nickname popped into my head, but I will get to that in a second.

I claim several cities as my home towns. I have lived in Baton Rouge for a couple years so it is home now. My family has it's origins in New Orleans, so that's where my roots are, I spent many years in Slidell, LA. And Moms still resides there, and I lived for about 9 years(in 2 different segments) in Tuscaloosa, AL. So, you can see how I might claim different places depending on the situation. Well, Nothing catchy popped in my head that pertained to swiming and any of the Louisiana towns. But, There was one that popped into my head that pertained to my years in T-Town.

"The Tuscaloosa Torpedo"

Awesome, I know.

Runners up were:
The New Orleans Drunken-Hurricane
The Slidell Slug
The Baton Rouge Manatee

I think I made the right choice.

So Aggravated

I love being a teacher. but these kids are driving me nuts. I could give you a list of a hundred things I love about teaching and a hundred that aggitate me. But, I know you don't want to hear all that. I will just tell you about one thing. Today, my students, my little thugs geniuses, took the first part of their graduation exit exam. They can not graduate without passing this test. I had no idea as to what was going to be on the test (the state doesn't tell us any specifics) but I focused on a few key concepts from each unit and really "hammered" on those things as we went through the year. Since taking the test this morning several students have stopped by to tell me that they thought they did well and how "easy" the history questions were and to tell me that the rules I gave them for answering essay-like questions really helped. "It was the exact stuff that you said would probably be on there". Well, I'm glad someone was listening because for everyone that said that, there was another who swore we never talked about "that" stuff.

My reply to that was: "You are correct. WE never talked that stuff. I talked about it while YOU did everything else that YOU could possibly find to do other than pay attention to what WE were talking about".

On the brightside, repeaters make it a lot easier to learn the names of my students at the beginning of each year.