Snow Day?.......

This is one of the many times that I'm happy to live in the Deep South.

And a little embarrassed at the same time.

The weather forecasters have been screaming SNOW!!!!! for several days now. It was all supposed to happen today, and several school districts announced yesterday that they would be closing early today.

The first few flakes started falling around 3:30 this afternoon, and we took turns going to the window to make sure it was REALLY snowing.

It's still snowing a little, but really not enough to create any problems.

That's the good news.

The other good news is that here in the Deep South, it doesn't TAKE much for schools to close. One flake and BAM! no school. With our lawsuit-happy society, no one wants to take the chance on one errant snowflake getting under the wheel of a several-ton school bus and causing an accident while carrying the three students in our county whose parents don't sit in the car-rider line to take them to school.

And I'm as bad as the students. I'm hoping and praying that enough snow falls that it will freeze on the ground and we won't have school tomorrow. An unexpected day off on a FRIDAY, of all things, is just like Christmas all over again.

You know, Christmas? That two-week break from which we just returned?

We've had two whole days with the students already, so I'm ready for a break.

It's funny how each of the surrounding counties' approaches to closing schools can be so different. When Sweet Girl was in eighth grade, I was teaching in another county. We had a brand-new superintendent, and the snow talk had begun. In what I thought was a knee-jerk reaction, my superintendent canceled classes for the next day, but our HOME county didn't. They took a wait-and-see attitude, and what we saw was ....... nothing. It was supposed to start snowing around lunchtime, so I bundled Sweet Girl off to school. She was mad as a hornet that she had to go to school and I didn't. I reassured her that once the snow started, they would send them home early, and I would be there to greet her with hot chocolate.

Not one flake fell. Not one. Not in our county, not in the county where I taught, not anywhere in our area.

When Sweet Girl stomped off the bus that afternoon, her face looked like a thundercloud.

"You said it was gonna snow!" she growled at me.

And on top of that, there was no hot chocolate.

Doing my snow dance,

Bragger

The Big Apple......

My second trip to New York City also involved students. Sweet Girl's high school band was invited to play in Carnegie Hall, and I went along as a chaperon.

Just leading up to the trip itself was an exercise in stress management. It was the week before spring break, and I had to get special permission from the superintendent to miss the last two days before the break. Plus I was in charge of the yearbook, and there was a set of proofs that had, had, HAD to go back to the publisher before we left. Oh, and I was supposed to be ... teaching.

I didn't even get finished packing. We were leaving from Sweet Girl's school at 5:00 PM on a Wednesday, and at 3:30 I was still at MY school, trying to finish up the yearbook proofs. Sweet Girl called me, detected the stress/panic in my voice, and offered to finish packing for me. She's awesome that way. I think she was motivated by the abject embarrassment she would have felt if WE had been the reason the charter buses didn't roll out when they were supposed to. She's always believed in being EARLY for everything, a characteristic that I admire and envy. [I'm early for things like gymnastics meets and concerts, but rarely for school.]

Band kids are among the best high school students in the world, so I wasn't stressed at all about the trip itself. Plus I had about 18 hours on the bus to sleep.

Sometime in the night, I realized that nowhere in my suitcase was there a pair of dress shoes. Dress? Check. Pantyhose? Check. Evening wrap? Check. Shoes?

**crickets**

**crickets**

The first thing on our itinerary upon arriving in NYC was going to a show.

The last thing they said to us on the bus was for NO ONE to go ANYWHERE alone.

I checked Sweet Girl and her buddies into their rooms and told them I would be right back. Actually, I begged Sweet Girl to go with me, but she wasn't interested. So I went trudging up Madison Avenue in my soccer sandals and socks, the comfy sweat pants I had worn on the bus, and a less-than-adequate sweater.

Come to think of it, I think I know now why Sweet Girl wasn't interested in going with me.

I made it to the nearest shoe store and back without incident, amazing enough considering my severe directional handicap.

We walked several blocks to the show. Remember that these are new shoes? New DRESS shoes? Not terribly high heels, but not sneakers either.

It was early evening, and the first cardboard boxes were being erected for the night. I averted my eyes, lest I cause one of the homeless people any embarrassment. Suddenly I heard, "I saw a bum! I saw a bum! I've got to go tell Emily that I saw a bum!!!"

That was one of the chaperons. I wanted to slug her.

We saw Phantom of the Opera, we toured the Empire State Building, we discouraged the teenagers from hiring a limo.

The night of the band's performance, the chaperons were ushered in a back door with the band members, and then we went out front. I was almost overcome with emotion, looking around and thinking, "Good Lord. This is CARNEGIE HALL." I mean, Billy Joel had breathed air in that same structure. Granted, the air he breathed was probably tinged with some controlled substances, but whatever.

We took a walking tour of NYC. This was just six months after 9/11, and it was a very emotional tour. We stood at the fence around Ground Zero and saw the many stuffed animals, pictures, and flowers people had left at the makeshift memorial. We took the ferry over to the Statue of Liberty, but of course they weren't allowing people onto the island at that point, so we only got to look at it from the ferry. Our tour guide was an actress who served as a tour guide to supplement her income. She said she was in For Love of the Game and she played a sort of bitchy character, but I'd never seen the movie so I didn't recognize her. I still haven't seen it.

We missed our scheduled trip to Central Park due to a mix-up with the bus drivers, along with a visit to the American Museum of Natural History. Bummer. I wanted the students to see the enormous size of Central Park, because I'm sure they had a little country park pictured.

After the Carnegie Hall performance, the band director said the students didn't have to be in by curfew, as long as they were with a chaperon. I asked my little group (Sweet Girl and 4 others) what they wanted to do, and they said they wanted to walk up to Central Park.

At 10:00 PM. On a Friday night.

Uh, no.

It was the only time I told them "no" the whole trip. I heard that some of the other chaperons made the kids stay in the hotel because they didn't want to go anywhere, or they were afraid of venturing out. We went to Times Square several times, rode the ferris wheel inside Toys R Us, and had a ball. I figured it was their trip, so I wanted them to have as much fun as they possibly could in those few days. I hated it that the other chaperons were such sticks in the mud.

But walking to Central Park at 10:00 PM on a Friday night?

Sorry, kids, no can do.

So we went to McDonald's in Times Square instead. Even there I didn't feel completely comfortable.

On the way up there, I called Hubby from somewhere in New Jersey. We could see the New York City skyline from where we stopped, but it was time for the drivers to take their hour break. I remember telling Hubby's voicemail, "Hell is not a place. It's a bus ride."

I've told Sullen Teenager that I will take her to NYC when she graduates from high school. It'll be here before we know it. But I'm making her mama go too. And possibly Hubby. I don't want to press my luck, chaperoning teenagers in the big city. I hope the Naked Cowboy is still there.

Too Much Going On.....

Tomorrow is the first day of a new semester, which brings some degree of chaos every time. At least we aren't getting an entirely new crop of students, but most of them are starting new courses.

Tonight is my first online teaching session of this semester. Only 16 more to go.

Georgia and Georgia Tech are playing one another in basketball.

Georgia Tech is also playing against Iowa in the Orange Bowl.

I didn't mean to schedule tonight's session with so many athletic contest conflicts.

I really wanted to blog about my second trip to New York City.

Sometimes an Obsession....

....can turn into a good thing. Not often, and not a SPLENDIFOROUS thing, but something to take the sting out of a Monday on which the temperature in my car read 17 degrees and I had to return to school after a two-week break.

Last year I came across the book Not Quite What I was Planning, a collection of six-word memoirs written by the famous and the obscure. In typical fashion, I read as many of the memoirs aloud as Hubby would sit still for, shared the book with my niece, and began harassing everyone in earshot as to what THEIR six-word memoirs would be. I even blogged about it. Oddly, many people I tried to pin down for their memoirs had the very same one: "I. Don't. Have. Time. For. This."

I visited the SMITH Magazine website and submitted a six-word memoir, along with about a bazillion other people.

A few months later I got an email saying that my memoir had been "selected as a finalist for publication in the next book" and asking for my contact information. I was naturally skeptical and cynical, but since it only asked for my mailing address and not my bank account number, PIN, credit card number, social security number, birth date, blood type, height and weight, or astrological sign, I shrugged and went ahead and entered it.

I had forgotten all about it. Then a couple of weeks ago I got an email saying it was being published, and I could expect to receive my contributor's copy in the mail.

I was still skeptical.

Until today.

The latest book is It All Changed in an Instant. My hand is in the picture for two reasons: To prove that I actually HAVE the book, when I could have copied the image from their website. And I couldn't get it to stay flat on the table while I took the picture.


There, on page 53, just above my index finger, is my six-word memoir.


Just like the first book, some of the memoirs are hilarious, and some are so poignant that I got choked up just trying to read them to Hubby. Most of them I read and thought, "Damn, that is so much better than mine. Why couldn't I have thought of that?"

Please go buy a copy of this book. Not because it will benefit me financially in any way, because the contributor's copy of the book is (apparently) my only compensation. Buy it because reading these memoirs will uplift you and make you think.

Or, even better.....

Submit your own six-word memoir in the comment section of this blog post, and the writer of the best one will receive a free copy of the book. I'll give you some time to think about it -- deadline is midnight Eastern time, this Friday, January 8th. Hubby will serve as judge. He's the only judge I can afford. For those of you who know Hubby (both of you), I will keep your identities secret.

I just have one question......

Can I put this on my resume?

Teacher Tricks.....

When I was in the traditional classroom, I typically made my own tests as opposed to relying on those published by the textbook companies. I was convinced that some of the questions were deliberately written to confuse or trick students, and I don't think that really measures learning.

I did take measures to prevent cheating, however, such as creating two versions of the same test with the questions in a different order or the answer choices rearranged. But I was up front with the students and let them know in advance that there were two (or more) versions of the test, worksheet, or whatever. I really wasn't out to "catch" anyone. But catch them I did. Every semester without fail, some indignant student would march up to my desk to point out my grading error. "Look," he/she would say, "we have the exact same answers, and you marked mine wrong."

"Look at the questions," I would say. "You have different tests."

Long pause. Embarrassment. "Oh."

Occasionally I did resort to something silly. I gave weekly vocabulary tests, and they were always multiple choice. I used the same set of tests for multiple classes in an effort to save paper, so students had to write their answer choices on their own paper. This time I made "E" the correct answer to every single vocabulary word. I still mixed up the order of the words and made my speech about having different versions of the test, but the answers were all "E". I watched the students squirm uncertainly as they took the test. They were glancing at each other out of the corners of their eyes, wanting to ask each other but afraid to bring down my wrath for talking during a test. I'll never forget one of my favorite students' expression when she turned in her paper.

"I changed a random answer," she said in disgust. "I just knew they couldn't ALL be 'E'."

That's when I realized it was kind of mean to do that. Messing with their little minds. But man, were those tests easy to grade. And with about 120 of them to grade every week, in addition to all the OTHER assignments I had to deal with, it was nice to give myself a break.

I inherited some of this trickery from some of my own high school teachers, including possibly the best chemistry teacher on the face of the planet, then OR now. On one of our tests, we had to convert temperature from Fahrenheit to Celsius and vice versa. Except way back then it was Centigrade, not Celsius.

We had to memorize the formulas (yes, I know it is technically "formulae") for converting, and we weren't allowed to use calculators. We didn't even HAVE calculators, not for classroom use. I paid $100 for my first calculator when I started college. I should have just rented one, since my stay in the pre-med program was only slightly longer than my visit to the Honors Program.

On that section of the test, Ma Pace gave us a temperature, and we had to write the equivalent temperature when converted to the other scale. Math was always my strong suit, so I had no trouble with the conversions.

Until I got to -40.

I did the math, performed the calculations, and came up with -40.

That couldn't be right.

I erased my work and started over.

I did the math, performed the calculations, and came up with -40.

Damn!

I erased my work and started over again.

I did the math, performed the calculations, and came up with -40.

"Screw it," I said, writing -40 beside the hole I had erased in my paper.

Did you know that -40 is the only temperature that is the same on both scales?

Neither did I. But Ma Pace did.

What If I Don't Know?..........

I wish some places wouldn't be so cutesy with the labels on their restroom doors. Really, people, by the time I have to go, I really don't have time to figure out which one I am. "Men" and "Women" I understand. Although when I was first learning to read, I thought "Women" meant "Whoa Men," as in "Men don't come in here....whoa." That made a lot more sense to me than the way the word is actually pronounced.

We went to our favorite Aussie-themed restaurant tonight because Hubby needed his fix. Their restroom doors are labeled "Sheilas" and "Blokes." What if I had NEVER seen the Crocadile Dundee movie and didn't know if I were a sheila or a bloke? They do have the little diagram on the door as well, but it always takes me a minute to figure out if the little stick figure is wearing a dress or not. And besides, who wears dresses anymore?

Some of them are more obvious, and I don't have as much trouble with them. In an establishment where the doors were labeled "Hens" and "Roosters" once, I didn't hesitate. That one made sense.

In another "classy" place, however, I had to think about it for a minute. I didn't know for sure if I were a "Pointer" or a "Setter." Don't laugh at me! I realized immediately that I didn't have anything with which to point, but my literal nature gave me pause. I reasoned that both setters AND pointers can be EITHER male OR female, and I confused myself. Finally I peeked in both doors and picked the one that smelled the best. And where the seat wasn't up.

Perhaps the most cruel bathroom door trick ever, though, wasn't the label itself so much as it was the placement. I had drunk a couple of beers (one is usually my limit) and went to the ladies' room. The door was clearly labeled "Ladies" or "Women," whichever was appropriate. On the way OUT, however, the INSIDE of the door had a sign on it that said "Men." It was just enough to make me stop in horror and wonder if I had used the wrong restroom. Can you imagine what it must have done to a REAL drunk? I noticed the last time I was there it was no longer labeled that way. I hope I didn't imagine the whole thing. I swear it was only two beers.....

Foolishly, I just turned to Hubby for assistance on this blog topic. I asked if he had any other examples of restroom door labeling that I could include.

He said "Sticks" and "Splits."

I think he made that up.

Instant Journalism.....

In these days of instant information (not to mention gratification), I wonder if it's really been all progress. It used to be that journalists were mostly concerned with getting things RIGHT. Now it seems the emphasis is on getting things FIRST, and we'll iron out the details later.

I know there have ALWAYS been flaws with the system, as evidenced by the famous (infamous?) headlines declaring that Dewey had defeated Truman in 1948.

Nowadays we receive "information" at the moment of impact, it seems, and it gets reported whether or not it's factual.

The most recent example I'm thinking of, and I apologize if you're sick of hearing his name, is the Tiger Woods incident. His crash heard round the world happened when Hubby and I were camping and had no internet service. But because I get news alerts on my cell phone, I got a message that Tiger had been "seriously injured" in an automobile accident. Maybe that sort-of erroneous statement was just a harbinger of the REAL injuries that would emerge in the days following the accident.

It's not that I'm particularly worried about whether or not Tiger's troubles are told accurately or not. I'm just worried that in our information age, the information isn't always accurate. It used to be a big deal to print a retraction or a correction when misinformation made its way into the public eye, but even that has apparently fallen by the wayside.

In addition (or perhaps as a result), we have become a knee-jerk society, responding and reacting to news impulsively. I don't have any concrete examples of this, I'm just speaking in generalities. But when I hear a story that is later proved to be wrong, I sometimes think, "What if we had reacted to that when we FIRST heard it?"

This combination has made me even more cynical than I already was. Now when I hear something, I immediately don't believe it. I wait for confirmation or come up with as many contradicting circumstances as I can. It's not that I think people make this stuff up; it's just that I want to be sure the story I'm hearing is the REAL one.

Now I've committed another big sin of journalism -- I've written mostly of generalities without specific examples. Good thing I'm not a journalist.