glee loves teachers

“Thank you to public school teachers.

You do the most important work in America even though you don’t get paid like it.”

~GLEE writer Ian Brennan

I believed it before I joined the profession – teachers are some of the most noble, selfless people around. Sure, you get two months off each summer (or five weeks if you work at KIPP) but you are paid very little when you break it down to an hourly basis. You have to be smart, but no one thinks you intellectual. You have to be patient, and kind, and flexible, and a good communicator, and a great listener, and able to make multiple decisions in excruciatingly short time frames.

If you’re a new teacher at a school that pushes your students to achieve, achieve, achieve (and I think that’s a great thing) you stay up late some nights finding a way to introduce fractions in an interesting way, or explain what exactly the difference is between okay sentence structure and exemplary student writing.

No one pats you on the back often enough, your paycheck doesn’t take into account the pencils and hand sanitizer and books you just bought and the science experiment materials you’ll buy tomorrow, some families think you rock and others think you’re horrible, some students forget you’re a human with a life outside the school, other students pry and want to know all details of your life outside the school walls.

I believed it before I joined the profession – teachers are the most underappreciated group of employees in the nation. But now that I am one, and I’m in the building for a minimum of 10.5 hours each day but usually 11 or 12, I am baffled at the fact that lawyers and wall street brokers and bankers and all sorts of other people – important, essential people to be sure- get recruited and wined and dined while teachers are hardly ever “recruited.” They are expected to join education out of the goodness of their heart. This is a fine reason, but still, baffles me that education recruitment is so nonexistent.

Anyways, this quote from the Glee writer is a nice shout out to teachers all over the country. And, hey, people in the financial world or wherever, making more money than teachers, don’t get to confiscate notes like this at their jobs:

“Yes but I want to be more than friends like I want to hang out together or talk to each other. Do you want to do that? YES or NO”

Yep, one of my 8 year old girls wrote that for an 8 year old boy from another class. But, she has good taste - he gells his hair into a Mohawk everyday and is really nice. However, in the 3rd grade world where I’m in charge, we’re all friends and nothing more than that. Because we are EIGHT years old. And I'm really busy trying to figure out to teach math to handle awkward situations like if he were to circle "no."

ring in the new year

who knew that being locked in a ski house (more like lodge) with 16 other wonderful people (more like crazy) and five cuddly dogs (more like hairy beasts) would be so great. (more like awesome!)

couldn't resist posting this. something in your teeth, mar?


violent games of charades. inappropiate movie quotes. best of chris farley. scrabble and dance offs and hours of cards. ray lamontange blasting on the speakers. way too much food. a lot of snow. tempatures that for 3 days did not rise above zero. skiing. skiing like a mad man after my father as he raced the wind down the mountain until my nose became a little block of ice.

i look a bit insane. perhaps that's why he threw me in the snow later.


laughter and sleeping late and dancing for hours and bundling up like eskimoes and remembering our jaybird and making new memories. such as courtney trackwell chanting over and over "this is the best. new years. ever."


he's so lucky to have TWO courtneys to harass and love him.
so long, 2010. i'm glad we survived you. hello, 2011. may you be full of happiness and blessings.

and numerous dance parties.

thanks, thank you, gracias, vielen dank

the new year brings a freshness to so many areas of our lives, and with the recent tradegy in arizona and the crap i see my students put up with each day in their home lives, i find myself flowing over with thankfulness for so many things, some serious, some frivolous. and i find myself hounded by a few lovely friends to update my blog more often (they're bored at their desks or really, really good friends, or both) so here goes...

i never ever have to read blogs anymore, you know, the pretty to look at, interesting to read about other peoples lives, kind of blogs, the legit ones... but i spent 10 minutes doing just that today, and i'm quite thankful for those 10 minutes.

http://www.bellemaison23.com/

pretty home interiors. pretty home magazines. i caught up on my reading this past weekend and i just....loved every minute of it.

chalkboards. i like decorating them, writing weird quotes on them, and cleaning them. i'm weird, i know.



books and fun invitations i found whilst reading someone else's blog.

cute pictures of my very cute 94 year old great grandmother. who looks like she might be shoving 80....

laughter. children. goofy children that make me laugh.

the cold weather! wearing mittens and a scarf in houston? yes please. great friends? yes please.

"those who bring sunshine to the lives of others cannot help but keep it from themselves." james barrie

are you missing a monkey? i might have found it...

less than a year ago there was a 2,000+ pound steer roaming through the parking lot at Reliant Hall here in Houston. some time before that there was a bobcat (live, breathing, claws-attached bobcat) strolling through a downtown parking garage in htown. here in the 713 alligators have been known to leave the bayou and enter someones backyard, or golf course pond, or something similar.

which i why i am mostly, almost entirely convinced there is a monkey living in the parking garage attached to our apartment building.

HAVE YOU SEEN THIS MONKEY??

before you call my parents or the psych ward to report my crazy claim, let me tell you: before leaving for colorado on dec. 27, i noticed one or two banana peels in the corner of the 4th floor, near the stairs where I usually walk up after parking my car on a lower level. (i hate driving the ramps. too slow. i'd rather run down stairs and floor it straight out of the garage. i am my father's daughter.)

anyways, the peel was there for a few days, turned black and looks disgusting. i thought about picking it up but figured, that was gross. not my job. pick up your own banana, you hung over fool. (i've found other objects like a solitary black high-heeled shoe, the occasional beer can, a crushed cigarette box, but normally the garage and apt buildings are quite clean.)

well, we left for colorado and i didn't think much of the banana peels in the corner. until this evening. i noticed that there are 4, maybe 5, shoot, maybe even SIX banana peels stacked in the corner where the concrete walls merge. Some of the peels are solid black, others still show bits of yellow and appear to be fresh.

I have to wonder - what kind of person is doing this? Someone who eats their breakfast on the go, perhaps? Well, I do the same and I've never thrown my granola bar wrapper or apple core down on the ground. I seriously doubt someone is repeatedly throwing banana peels in the same spot because our trash company would have to pick it up. And everyone knows our sweet couple that works for the trash company, the man and woman in their early fifties who only acknowledge me if i speak spanish, who wear yellow reflector vests as they pick up the trash bags on each floor, who always smile and seem happy to do their job, what person would ask them to do extra work?

And as all of these thoughts rushed in to my head this evening in the thirty seconds it took me to reach my door from the garage, I realized. This is no human. It's perfectly clear.

There is a monkey running amok in our parking garage. A monkey! All the spaces on the lower floors were taken when I got home this evening. So as I try my best to round each corner before dawn tomorrow, I'll be on the lookout for the monkey... I hope he watches out. I'm not the best driver before 7 am....

country song

Country Strong
I like Gwyenth Paltrow, I love Tim McGraw, and I love country music – naturally since I’ve seen the previews for new movie “Country Song” I’ve been dying to see it.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xi-T8_2kt-8
Now that I have seen it, I feel compelled to share with the three people who read this blog (okay, maybe four) and say this: I highly recommend it. The acting is great, the songs are prime for singing along (I’ve already downloaded the soundtrack) and the movie is quite thought provoking.

I’ll try not to spoil important details of the movie but feel the need to share this: the movie is dark and uplifting at the same time. I think it does a great job of showing how people with good intentions get sidetracked and distracted and lost, ending up in a dark, dreary place full of pain. You can simply watch the preview and see that Tim McGraw loves his wife, but is also pushing her to perform, to continue singing, even as she struggles to fight addictions and stand on her own two feet.

In the darkness of the movie theater I felt sad and sorry for Tim McGraw’s character. His wife clearly loves singing, is talented, and at some point in her life loves nothing more than performing on stage. As she struggles to do that, though, instead of scaling back, he pushes her more and more, scheduling multiple concert appearances. Gwyneth’s character continues to be sad, question what makes her happy, and finds herself in a drunken, hideous state more than once.

I know to the skeptics and cynics of this world, the following will sound crazy, naïve, simplistic. And I don’t blame them for thinking it. But I feel that Gwyneth, with all of her beautiful blonde hair and beautiful, bold singing voice, cannot find contentment because she searching in all the wrong places. In her fame, in her talent, in her husband, in her vodka bottle - and I don’t say that in a judgmental way, I’ve briefly looked in similar places, too. And I’ve never found joy, not joy that lasts.

There’s a very cute boy in the movie who you meet at the opening of the film. He’s an employee at Gwyneth’s rehab facility and you quickly find that he has a huge heart, is a very good guy, gives a lot of himself to make others in the film happy. And yet, try as he may, the cute boy can’t fix Gwyneth. Perhaps because he is just that: a cute boy. And we need more than a boy, more than a mere human, to help us in our misery.

I walked away from the movie ready to two step, ready to sing, and still, a bit sad. Again, I won’t spoil it for you, but there is no mention of a higher power in the film, no mention of grace, or peace, or really unconditional love. I wondered as we walked out of the theater: if the story line would have changed had there been someone to share the light of God.

And I don’t mean a twangy, artificial, stereotypical evangelical country preacher. (Though I’m sure they’re doing their own part for heaven’s glory.) I had in mind just your average, run of the mill kind person who by the grace of God has come to know the peace and security found in Christ. It feels a bit cheesy to even type that, but really – my life is so different because of what I put my faith in, and how the Lord pours into me. I would not have that faith or contentment if it weren’t for relationships with a few people on this planet – my parents, Libba and Mike Maddry, Mary Chenoweth, a few other young life leaders, and several others I’ve met along the way. People that remind me we can’t make it in this life alone – and that we’re not designed to.

The music and the lighting and the acting are all beautiful, but I found myself wanting to tell everyone in the movie, to shout at them – there’s more to life than this! (Call me crazy, but I found the movie was so compelling that a few times during the movie I had to remind myself the characters are not real and that they cannot hear me gasping and making comments to them.)

There has to be more than broken marriages, and hurting people, and pain for nothing – by no means is life less painful or broken for Christians. But there is that peace and strength and comfort from knowing we are made and loved by God that makes all the difference.
Gwyneth, I’m not sure you can hear me through all that hair and hairspray covering up your ears, and I know I have to struggle to hear it more on some days than others, but: you.are.loved.
“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. In him was life, and that life was the light of all mankind. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.” John 1:1-5

flying to colorado

It has always been a sort of rite of passage – the 18 hour drive, (or in some years with lots of snow or running out of gas dilemmas, 23 hours.) The sore muscles, the jittery feeling from too much caffeine and only a few hours of sleep, the dog hair flying about the suburban, the movie quotes and the laughing hysterically at something Jay or Bobby has said over the walkie talkie.

My family has always driven to Colorado for spring break ski trips, and in 2008 and 2009, due to one varsity pitcher’s spring schedule, we skied in December instead. As we got out of the car for the past 6 or 7 years, it felt as if we’d earned vacation – the thousands of miles behind us, the fact that we could survive such tight quarters for nearly 24 hours without killing each other, feeling old enough and trusted enough to drive the 2 am stretch through the panhandle, or New Mexico, or wherever…the drive, for me, has always been as much of the vacation as the actual skiing.

Some of my most vivid memories of Jay are in gas stations across Texas and Colorado – all of us sleepily emerging from our vehicles, eyes tired, bodies adjusting to the dropping temperatures, excited to reach our final destination. Homie always made some crack about what crappy candy my dad would buy, and I can remember him hugging me as we stood in line for the restroom. I remember him always seeming so tall – height not something familiar to the Robos. I remember his laugh, and his smile, and knowing we were safe, knowing that he –and Bobby! – would keep an eye on my dad – not let him overdose on chewy sprees or dry up his kidneys with gallons of diet dr. pepper, not let him swerve off the road… Yes - they would ensure we arrived in one piece.

I guess that’s why flying is strange to me – not just because I feel like a princess, swiping a credit card, showing an ID, boarding a plane and almost instantly arriving in Denver. What about the stiff knees? The exhaustion? The grumpiness? Flying is so easy, I feel like a celebrity. Someone else carries my ski boots and luggage; I read a book and drink a diet coke on the plane, two hours later, boom! Colorado. You didn’t earn anything.
But it’s not that, really. I don’t mind the princess thing that much. I could get used to the pampering, the easy way of travel. The real reason I don’t love flying to Colorado? It reminds me something has changed. It reminds me that something isn’t right. It reminds me that Jay isn’t here.

I know that our faith teaches us all in the world happens for a reason. I know that our faith says that there is a heaven, a place beyond our imagination, far better than being here on this rock. But for those of still on this rock, that place is hard to fathom. It is hard to be the ones left behind. It is hard to be without Jay, harder for my friends john, willie, and mary. Watching the ones you love hurt sucks.

I cling to the memories we all have of our friend Jay. I cling to the people we are still left with- the Chennies, and the Martins, and the Gentrys, (and the ts, even though they don’t ski. J) I cling to the hope and the joy that we must go on living, knowing that though the years on this earth feel like forever, God’s timeline is different, and we are not left without Jay for long. There will be a day when we all return to His presence and stand with the ones we love so much. I cling to the goodness, and the laughter, and the truth, and I pray that will be enough to keep us moving onward.

I cling to the thought that if it was one of us, Homie would do the very same. And I know that from somewhere, he is looking on, watching us, loving us, and pushing us forward. Though we can’t see him, I fully believe he is loving his boys, his sweet Mare, and daring Tom to “put some more in there.” More than anything, Jay’s absence reminds me to do just that: believe, and believe with my whole heart.