okay. it’s more like “empty cubicles” . . . but having had three former phone company colleagues and friends die within a two-week period, yeah, this song is on my mind a bit.

that Ms. Mona was almost four months pregnant already in this picture?

and have I mentioned that it’s been a lonnnnnnnnnngggggggggg week?

and even though it’s Friday night, I’m going to back-date this because then my saying, “have I mentioned it’s been a long week?” in the post I wrote tonight and back-dated to Thursday will make sense.

(do you feel cheated, dear 2.75 readers out there?! if so, I am deeply sorry.)

Here’s the crazy thing, though. I wrote a while back about my decision to not pursue the NYCTF thing. At the time, it seemed clear that this was not the path I was to take, at least not right now. But this week, I found myself back on the emotional roller coaster of indecision because of two incidents that led me to two completely opposite conclusions.

First, lunch on Monday. I had the joy of sitting with the wife of my favorite new CRWM staff member, who is a teacher, as well as with another new missionary who is a social worker and will be in a school setting in the country she and her husband are moving to. Somehow the conversation turned to charter schools, NCLB, etc, and I was instantly engaged . . . doing that typical “lorraine” thing of practically jumping out of my chair because I just had so, so, SO much to say.

The thing is, I have strong opinions about the whole charter school thing (which I’m sure you didn’t notice), and my passion for racial justice is so inextricably tied up in my passion for public education that serves ALL of our children, and perhaps especially those who don’t have parents who are able or willing to fight for what they need. (This is mostly Jonathan Kozol’s fault.) So then, am I *meant* to be a teacher? What am I to do with all of this passion?

Then there was today. (try not to think about the fact that “today” is really two days ago as I’m writing this–we’re pretending it’s Wednesday, remember?)

There was an hour’s gap in our childcare schedule at the last minute, and my supervisor, knowing how much I love kids, suggested that I be the one to fill in that hour. Now, the thing is, I love kids, but I think that I tend to enjoy them much more on a one-on-one basis. I also don’t do quite as well with rambunctious and/or disobedient kids . . . basically, I’m a sucker/pushover/wimp, and kids can smell that the minute they look at me. I make all of these feeble attempts to set limits and boundaries, and yet I end up letting too many things slide, and chaos ensues. This hour, with this particular group of kids was no exception.

 
(this is what the room looked like while I was in charge)

I did have their attention while I read a few books, and was able to re-focus them for the most part during that part of it. But then there I was, trying to extract profound conversation from them, and I really got nowhere.

Worst of all, however, the teenager who was there to help for the day told me at lunchtime that, “as soon as Mrs. Z got there, they were all very well-behaved.” In other words, Mrs. Z took control of the classroom and was able to “manage” it. Me, not so much. So I don’t communicate very well with groups of children, am not good at engaging them, and have NO classroom control whatsoever. Any of the “maybe I SHOULD do this” thoughts that I’d had a few days before flew out of the window with that one observation from an objective observer. As anybody can see, I don’t like meting out discipline, and I am NOT a good teacher. I’m not even sure I really relate/connect to kids in any meaningful way . . . maybe they all just think I’m nuts, who knows. (wouldn’t be the first time . . . )

 
(this is the classroom restored to order and sanity once the “real” teacher arrived.)

Then I think, “well, I could go into administration . . . have some role like that . . . train educators . . . ” but of course, none of this makes sense because I can’t see any path to training educators that precludes my having first BEEN an educator.

So yes, we are back to square one. Thanks for reading! We have some lovely parting gifts for you . . .

Okay, so I’m easily amused . . . but I was excited that Tar-ghay now offers a 90-day supply of certain generic meds for $10. (cheaper than my mail-order!)

And Target has the cutest prescription bottles anyway, right? But I couldn’t help thinking of that old Looney Tunes cartoon when I saw the bottle my 90-day supply came in . . . 

Here’s the “regular-sized” bottle:

Sure, that’ll suffice if you just need a little bit of happiness . . . but if you need to call out the big guns, you’ve gotta have this:

(did I mention I’m easily amused?)

ugh, ugh, ugh. 

I don’t think I ever watch Faux news (except occasionally my local version), but I hear enough about it across the blogosphere to know that it’s a bunch of crap that I don’t WANT to watch. 

However, as you may know, I’m pretty passionate about making sure that people understand that Black English (whether you want to call it by the greatly maligned, mocked, and misunderstood term “ebonics”, or use the more descriptive phrase, “black English vernacular”) is NOT merely a matter of ignorance, but is an actual dialect with its own grammatical rules and structure. So when I see a black man on Faux News whose stated mission is to de-ignorantize (there’s some Lorraine-bonics for you!) those poor, “ignorant” inner-city black kids, it just boils my biscuits. 

Don’t get me wrong . . . it’s not the fact that he’s teaching these young people to cope in the predominant culture that bothers me . . . it’s his ATTITUDE about it, and his obvious lack of understanding of linguistics (not to mention history!) that makes me angry. 

In the video linked above (I was so pissed off that I didn’t even want to embed it), we hear at least one young black woman buying into the lie as she says,  ”in the area I grew up in . . .  we don’t talk proper English”. Way to teach people to hate themselves for a language pattern that has a long and complex history that can be traced back to slavery and before! 

The Faux News piece even conjures up Bill Cosby, in effect implying that McClendon is getting flack, just like Cosby does, for trying to improve the lot of ‘his people’.

did I mention, “UGH!!!!!!!!!!”??? Field, (who I have to thank for calling my attention to this) would definitely have a name for Mr. McClendon (and perhaps the rest of his family, although I’m not sure what to make of the greater (and seemingly very random) “corporation”).

It’s surely no coincidence that I just heard a very wise man whom I greatly admire talking this week about the language that white North Americans use to label languages and cultural traditions that are not their own. “North Americans have ‘ethnicities’, he said, “whereas Africans have ‘tribes’; North Americans speak a “language”, whereas Africans” (and surely this applies to native American people groups across our own continent as well!) “have ‘dialects’.”

If you want to know how I feel about ebonics BEV, then you should read this. In case you’re lazy, here’s an excerpt:

Labov’s point was that speakers of BEV weren’t simply making random grammatical mistakes when they spoke. They were following rules that their community of speakers had developed, and which they had learned from being immersed in it. What they were speaking, he argued, was not a flawed and failed attempt at standard English, but a particular version of English that was just as expressive and fluent as standard.

Better yet, watch this video . . . it will cleanse your heart and soul of the BS that Mr. Garrard “H.N.*” McClendon is dishing out . . . 

(*yeah, I don’t feel like I’m allowed to use that term, and you know that I can barely say that word to begin with, but hopefully you get the idea.) 

I’m loving it that my bestest former work acquaintance is blogging . . . and this entry cracked me right up (HA!!! “CRACKED” me up!!! “I make a little joke”.)

So give some love to the Delineator’s blog . . .

(and just for the record . . . I’m not addicted to Mob Wars . . . I can stop anytime I want!

. . . except that I have to go rob a bank now . . . )

Come on. I don’t even drink. (anymore.) 

And I don’t talk THAT much, do I? 

(thanks for not answering that!)

Was this confusing message:

Serving size: 6

Servings per container: about 2

Seriously. Since when does 9=12?! or how do they figure that 9 is “about” the same as 12? 

It’s one thing when my pierogies come in a box that says it contains 12 and really only contains 11 . . . I can overlook that (even if it does seem to happen to me ALL the time! and people wonder why I compulsively count my chicken nuggets at the drive-thru . . . ) But this just doesn’t make sense. Especially when I’ve seen “Servings per container: 1.5″ in the past. 

It’s a scam, I tell you.

I have done exercises like this one more than once in anti-racism trainings. This particular meme purportedly focuses more on class than on race per se, although I certainly am aware (more and more) that race and class are inextricably entwined, and attempts to separate out the two almost always prove futile.

I also know that people react strongly to this type of activity, and of course, no activity of this type is ever going to be perfect, but I suspect that the reason most of us shy away from such activities, or find reasons to criticize them, is that they put us dangerously close to the point where we need to admit to our own privilege. So you end up with reactions like this that remind me of the people who protest the (admittedly tongue-in-cheek) characterizations on Stuff White People Like. “But I’m not THAT KIND of white person!” And on it goes . . . 

Anyway, here’s the meme. The goal is to BOLD the items that are true for you and to see how many you end up with. Let’s see how I do . . . 

Father went to college [um, does trade school count here?! I guess I'll mark it.]
Father finished college
Mother went to college
Mother finished college
Have any relative who is an attorney, physician, or professor
Were the same or higher class than your high school teachers
Had more than 50 books in your childhood home
Had more than 500 books in your childhood home
Were read children’s books by a parent
Had lessons of any kind before you turned 18
[I had about six months of piano lessons when I was in high school. however, it was made abundantly clear to me at a young age that the reason I could NOT take dance lessons was because "we couldn't afford it".]
Had more than two kinds of lessons before you turned 18
The people in the media who dress and talk like me are portrayed positively
Had a credit card with your name on it before you turned 18
Your parents (or a trust) paid for the majority of your college costs*
Your parents (or a trust) paid for all of your college costs*
Went to a private high school
Went to summer camp
Had a private tutor before you turned 18
Family vacations involved staying at hotels [we never took a vacation!]
Your clothing was all bought new before you turned 18 
Your parents bought you a car that was not a hand-me-down from them 
There was original art in your house when you were a child
Had a phone in your room before you turned 18 
You and your family lived in a single family house
Your parent(s) owned their own house or apartment before you left home  
You had your own room as a child 
Participated in an SAT/ACT prep course [free ones at New Dorp High School]
Had your own TV in your room in High School
Owned a mutual fund or IRA in High School or College
Flew anywhere on a commercial airline before you turned 16
Went on a cruise with your family [when I was 20]
Went on more than one cruise with your family
Your parents took you to museums and art galleries as you grew up
You were unaware of how much heating bills were for your family

That’s all I’ve got. If you want to read more about people’s reactions, you can go here. But in the meantime, as “impoverished” as I like to believe myself to be, I know that I am still struggling with the legacy of white privilege, and that I’ve barely begun to unearth all of the ways in which it’s been manifested in my life. So there is much to do, and I know that I have barely started.

Bush Tours America To Survey Damage Caused By His Disastrous Presidency