(no subject)

Some moods don't make for good posts. Last week Kel was here, meant a lot to me and built up a bunch of experiences in a small amount of time - yet I don't think any of it will appear here. To me that matters but I can't figure out why.

Did I mention that my mood is good overall, no reason?

I talked to my aunt today - for hours. Mostly I listened. She was a teacher and is now involved in odyssey of the mind. She, like my teacher friends, loathes the standardized testing pervasive in teaching, and many teaching methods in general. To her, you're not supposed to just take work a child does and hand it back to them with "corrections." One of her first steps is to ask all the kids in a group what their faults are - they all raise their hands and volunteer. Then she asks what they are good at, their passion...silence. Think about it...you rag on bad things, even in yourself, but what do you stand up for? When you say you're good at something, you now may face judgment on that subject area. Her goal is to draw on their strengths, and inspire their passions with whatever they are good at. By the time they put on their pieces, she wants them to be volunteering what they are good at and being comfortable (if not proud) with it. What a fucking cool person. When she talks about that passion thing though she sounds too much like Kelowna...but she's from Maine. Perhaps it's one of those Canadian things, and Maine is so far north they're infected as well. She has blue eyes too...you can see them light up when she speaks with passion.

She noted teaching english. Her concept is to have 1st graders speaking in complete sentences. Then develop them to answer questions with several sentences - then when it comes time to write, those multi-sentence answers exist in their minds and speech, and writing is just a question of making a record of that. Rather than correct them for punctuation and spelling, she will have them read their answer to her - and she'll ask questions for areas that need further development. Only when the child is able to express themselves in writing does she get around to correcting spelling and soforth - that's easy. She finds too many kids are just trying to avoid punishment, so they do as little as possible. She...draws them out. Now, she's not a teacher in a school so she can actually do that.

She also noted that my generation of our family hasn't had many kids, and that's sad. I agree.

I'm...home. I could have gone out with new friends on friday, but instead I drank alone and watched will smith's black jesus movie. After my work attacks, which I need to learn not to care about so much emotionally, I was exhausted and didn't want any more social contact. Saturday I forced myself to go out, but while everyone was wonderful, I just wanted to go home. I'm a little nervous about the fact I've had a return of a real burning desire to drink - one I've given in to a few times. I'm not getting ripped, but if I get home sober at 1am - why in the hell am I having a nightcap? Da fuck does that do for me other than screw up the next day? Why that desire for more?

Woke up this morning and watched idiocracy. I am hugely disappointed in this movie - I was told I'd like it, didn't. It is a movie making fun of stupidity, but in so doing it was an incredibly stupid movie.

This week I travel to Kansas with the woman who keeps attacking me. I'm going to try and professionally...tell her I FEEL like I've done something to bother her, that I PERCEIVE hostility and criticism, and ask what I can do to improve our working relationship - noting she is the boss, has the power, etc. If that last ditch doesn't change her attacks on me, I'll have to evaluate if I'm going to face liability with her, if she's dangerous enough to me to leave this job, or if the prospects out there are better than this. I've been there about 5 years and really don't want to go, but I also don't want to battle on a frequent basis against people who are supposed to be working with me. If she is sex/racist, well I just can't be a black woman so I'll never please her.