tax time

In my heart of hearts, I am generally content with the work-related choices I've made. I chose my degrees based on interest and such-as-it-is aptitude without really any consideration for money or perhaps even job security. I have done what I wanted to do. And I do believe that in our current system teachers are partly compensated in time: I work thirty-six weeks of the year, officially, and I value the time that I seem to have paid for with a proportionally smaller paycheck. When teachers bitch about money I tend to be a little dismissive: we all knew the deal, and so many work much harder for much less. It feels wrong to complain, but I lose a little perspective when I take a hard look at my W-2. Hoo boy. The state teacher retirement fund better remain solvent; that's all I have to say. This is no way to get ahead. 

father-daughter

"I've only got a minute," says my retired father from the cellphone he uses so rarely I don't recognize the number.

I wonder, briefly and in passing, what's wrong: it's nearly the reaction inspired by a phone that rings too early or too late: "Who's in the hospital?" or, "Who died?" In a moment I am stepping into my shoes and pulling my coat, but only to meet him, as instructed, in the driveway. He doesn't negotiate the steps easily, and, as he said, he only has a minute.

As I walk out, I look to the passenger seat to confirm: he's solo. And already standing at the back of the Escape; he moves better when he's motivated.

And there it is: a duplicate of the aerobic step he'd purchased at some great discount for my mother.  "I thought it could help build up your leg."  I smile at the gesture without even trying to anticipate how or when that kind of activity will fit into my stress fracture rehab protocol. Sooner or later or never: whatever.  I'm not even faking it as I begin to express my appreciation for this unsolicited gizmo. He stops me with a raise of his hand:

He points out with ex-machinist precision the dimensions and height options. I can almost see his metal ruler; I certainly recognize the pause that precedes his inevitable, concluding warnings about the dire fates that could befall me were I to get carried away and trip over his gift. But darkness is falling and it's too cold for an extended debate on the likelihood of an ER visit.  "Okay," I concede; it's not as if grace is in the gene pool.

Mission accomplished, he's backing out almost before I've got the front door closed. I love you, too, Dad.

Yesterday

And thus the four became three, before we even met.

Standing at a conference room table, the secretary and I sort out a pile of Mexican papers that represent a new family of students.

"This is what we'd call the last name," I point out, differentiating family name from the appended mother's maiden, explaining the tradition. We agree that we like the way their culture preserves both names for the future, and I give her mental credit for recognizing that foreign ways have value: that's the level we're operating on here.

What would be, in English, a five-minute filing job expands to accommodate my not-quite-proficient Spanish; I want to say, "See what it's like?" But instead I focus on getting the documents matched up and learning what I can of the kids: nineteen year-old sister, 17 year-old brother, 16 year-old brother, each with middling bachillerato and secundaria grades from 2008. I'm unsurprised at the gap but make a note to ask after 2009 when I realize, a beat later, what I'm reading in the last folder, the one for a younger sister.

I go out to the front desk to show what I've found:

"She just turned 14 in December." I'm answered with a half-nod of comprehension. "And this. . ."

"Primary school."

"Right. She finished sixth grade in 2008. She is not a high school kid." Even though she's been trying to register here for a week. They've kept the appointments, filled out the papers, gotten the shots, and now, finally, somebody's noticed.

Given the logistics of squeezing a quartet of newcomers into my schedule, identifying one as a middle schooler is a triumph, or it should feel like one: one fewer schedule, one fewer desk, one less everything. A 25 percent-off sale. But it's also sending this girl across town to a teacher with 10 days' experience, and it's explaining to this family why suddenly this is the wrong school. For a split-second, it feels easier to skip her ahead.

But instead I close the folder and leave the secretary to her phone calls. I'll be back in the morning, to enroll and explain and do whatever I do. I am the teacher, technically. And yet.

Four

"Is that a lot of work for you?"

Is my pause perceptible?  It's not as if everything I have to do and juggle and reconfigure to fit four new students into into my more-or-less program flashed before my eyes. Instead I'm stuck mid-cringe, wedged between, "You have no idea what I do," and, "I have no idea how I'm going to do it." 

It is typical to have a new kid or two in January, at the more-or-less beginning of the semester. I know better to assume my schedule is fixed. But four? FOUR? I don't even have the desks. Let alone an all-beginner class to slip them into (none of them speak English) for even one of their eight yet-to-be-filled schedule blocks.  Wait, times four? Thirty-two. Thirty-two classes to schedule, though twelve or sixteen of them will be with me. With me in a room six or eight or twelve other kids who are doing two or three other things: nobody else will be starting at Lesson One.  Here's where my I'll-think-about-it-later starts to kick in, and oh, how later will be full of fodder.

At least I have books now, at least I have some software, at least I have some help on alternate days. At least I started to file and organize in December-- really. At least I have a day off before the new normal makes its debut. It will not be impossible, probably. But yes, my dear colleague, it's gonna be work.

Home

He is my object lesson, my there by the grace of God goes he.  Up until a month ago, not even a blink ago in geologic time, his home was an orphanage atop a fault line. But then the paperwork finally emerged from the byzantine Haitian bureacracy and his world shifted on a scale not measured by Richter. He was there, and now he is here-- except, of course, for part of his heart. 

This evening he sits in a middle American suburb where earthquakes are thus far only novelty and watches scant pictures from his home. The phones are out, of course, and all that is known-- if it is known for certain-- is that the hospital in his old neighborhood has collapsed. The fate of everyone else he knows in the world is unknown. They are all there, and he is here.  

American Red Cross  


Doctors Without Borders

Green Bay 45, Arizona 51 (OT)

Hot Stove

If the embedded video isn't working, click here.

I am deeply in football mode now (Go Pack Go!) and my only reaction to the winter free agent ridiculousness that is at the corrupted heart of baseball is a dismissive shrug of my shoulders. But this? This speaks to the Cardinal fan that will always be a part of me. And, it's funny as hell.