9 posts tagged “mississippi”
Justify the author's decision to make the revision by selecting the statement below that accurately evaluates the effect of the connotation of the word vow on the author's purpose.
My students accuse me of being racist.
It started -- as most near-disasters do -- innocently enough: A plan hatched a few weeks before for three friends and a newly acquired Expedition to head out of the flat Delta and into the north Mississippi hills on some family property to shoot at things after Saturday classes in Oxford. Things like cow patties and clay pigeons. A little target practice and some skeet shooting with a variety of firearms.
As most plans do, it morphed and grew as the day's classes dragged on; soon it was eight people, three vehicles, and an excellent lesson on the differences among firearms, general firearm safety, a guitar solo I wish I could remember, and some preparatory target practice. (Note here that I was shooting straight: hit my targets on the first shot with both the shotgun and the pistol.)
And then: Horseplay ensued.
Time to set off the moving targets. Who'll shoot first? Being older, female, wanting to play those cards, and having demonstrated pretty good skills, I jumped up. But I was to be thwarted by a Fram. The next thing I knew my arms were pinned to my side and I was running backward as Fram was running forward on wet slippery ground. Just as I was thinking this was not really a sustainable plan, I saw the ground coming toward me.
BONUS. Extra Credit DOK 3 Question: Explain why snowshoes are more successful than crutches or high-heels when walking across fragile snow.
I have only one bruise on my body. Fram has none. The bruise I have is on my left hip. The impact of our combined weight -- admittedly only about 260 or so -- was taken by my left hip.
That would be the hip that's broken.
Realized pretty quickly I was hurt, and couldn't stand. I remember having my arms over Fram's and Tabitha's shoulders, then the next thing I knew I was stretched out quite comfortably across the back seat of the Expedition. Relieved at not having said anything embarrassing or wet myself while out cold, I agreed -- after much persuading -- to stop by the hospital. Perhaps some Vicodin and Flexeril would be nice before heading back into the Delta and surely we would stop at Chamoun's Rest Haven as I usually do for Kibbe and grape leaves along the way home. Molly supplied a large ice bag, and with Beethoven's 7th blasting Austin led the convoy to First Baptist Hospital in Oxford.
Scooted myself out of the truck, into a wheelchair, and suffice it to say that the whole waiting room adventure deserves a blog entry of its own. You'll hear the stories someday. There had been carpool arrangements involved, so we ended up as a small crowd watching the UNC/Louisville game, eating Sonic, and generally disturbing the peace. Clearly the theory of a natural release of endorphins following traumatic injury is true.
Fast forward through a hellish night: Once the X-ray tech torqued my leg to get me out of the wheelchair and I felt the bones grind, I believed it might actually be broken. Endorphins gone. Gimme the morphine. Tabitha spent probably 30 grueling minutes helping me carefully take off my jeans and my first-issue Daring Fireball t-shirt. She and Fram both stayed by my ER bed, holding my hands, patting my head, and coaching my yoga breathing until I was finally stable enough to be moved to my room. Dani bought me a new phone charger. Lisa gathered up everything I might need from home for the 5-day stay. Tab took a day off to bring things up to Oxford. So many people did so many nice things. People in uniforms drugged me and tied me up in traction.
Went into surgery Sunday morning: three screws and a washer. (A washer?) Dr. Lamar gives me about a 2/3 success rate on this repair. Success being the blood supply to the ball of my hip is not compromised and the ball doesn't die. If not: Full hip replacement in about a year. Plus I'm thinking that when your surgeon's name is the same as the street the hospital is on, you're in pretty good hands.
Hospital stay is a blur. People came to visit. Thank you. Sorry you had to look at all the various fluid bags and tubes running in and out of me. The food was good. A nurse threw all my flowers away.
Hospital etiquette tip: Don't pull your sheet over your face to block sunlight when napping during the nurses' shift change. It tends to freak them out when they walk in and see you like that.
Home Thursday. David and Michael carried me up my back stairs like Cleopatra on a porch chair.
Emily will stay here to care for me until I can get myself into and out of bed and maybe use a cane instead of a walker so I can carry things like plates of food. In-home physical therapy three times a week. House-bound until April 25 when I'll find out whether I'll teach again this school year. [Reality check update: Probably not. But will be able to do my MTC work in June.] Still have some minor vision problems in my right eye from general force of impact (no direct hit to my head) and am now an expert at giving myself subcutaneous blood-thinner injections.
Those of you around (who are still reading) I'm always home, so stop by. It helps the time pass even better than drugs. The back door is unlocked -- just holler when you come in.
UPDATED: May 8 posted here. Includes a cool X-ray.
I was having lunch last Thursday (a duck and pheasant pot-pie, but that's another story) and got a phone call from 662 area code so I decided to answer.
"Hi, howya doin?"
"Um, fine. Who's this?"
"Scotty, [or John, or Dave, or whatever. I can't remember] your FedEx guy. I have a parcel [yes, he said "parcel"] here for ya, but you're not home. You gonna be home later?"
"Actually, I'm in Virginia, and will be home very late tonight. Can you leave it on my front screen porch?"
"Wow. Well ... it needs a signature so I shouldn't really do that. I'll bring it again tomorrow."
"Great. I have an appointment at 1:00 but will be home by 2:00. Is after 2:00 OK?"
"After 2:00. No problem."
Nice enough, you'd think. But wait. There's more:
It's noon. I'm at Cicero's enjoying the crawfish salad and get a 662 call again.
"Hi, howya doin?"
"I'm good, thanks. Who is this?" I ask, vaguely aware that I should know who it is.
Yep. It's what's his name. He's at my house and I'm not there, what with it being not after 2:00 and all.
"Well, look, I don't want you to have to make another trip. Just leave it on the front screen porch and it'll be fine. I'll be there in 2 hours."
"Well. I'll hide it behind this slate-top table, OK?"
Knowing this is better than hiding it among the pansies, I agree.
So, yeah. The package is there when I get home. My AppleCare documentation. Tucked nicely behind my table.
Here's the clincher:
Around 4:00 that afternoon. He called back to make sure I'd gotten my parcel.
[REQUIRED BLOG: EDSE 600 FIRST SEMESTER REFLECTION]
Change was what I wanted (thus the name) and I got it. Pretty much the only aspect of my life I recognize lately is the smell of my shampoo (which I now buy online because no place in the Delta sells it). I wanted a challenge, and I certainly got that, too. But how do my expectations match up to the reality?
I'm not sure at this point I even know what "the reality" is. Using the single article assumes there is, indeed, only one reality. And of course there isn't. When I read over the anticipatory entries, I realize that I had no idea how all-encompassing the experience would be.
It's like drowning every day.
Every day I am completely immersed in the reality of the Delta, the reality of teaching, the reality of what my life (oh, it was so nice just a little while ago) has become. I thought the year without an actual job would be a challenge. It was, and I suppose that by meeting it, and by learning to live with a lot of uncertainty I was preparing myself for the challenge of teaching in the Delta. Surely getting up at 4 a.m. to unload a truck gave me the physical stamina I've needed to get up and teach every day. I had never before appreciated how physically demanding teaching would be.
Professionally, I'm still struggling with whether it was wise to make a move like this, but I do think I'm succeeding as a teacher. What has amazed me most is how quickly I feel like I've been doing it a long time. I remember those days in summer school (remember those lesson plans with every second stage-directed and planned?) thinking I'd never be comfortable and confident in front of a class. How would I remember where I had set things down? How would I know everyone's name? And now, I'm completely at ease. It seems so natural to be there. And I know, it's a cliche, but really love those moments when my students "get it" -- even if it's only a few. In a way, that makes it all the better.
Students have told me, directly and indirectly, that I'm different from other teachers; that I make them work but in a good way that helps them learn. OK, some hate me, but if none did I wouldn't be doing my job.
And once again, I'm drowning in it. Every day. Weeks go by when virtually every conversation I have is about teaching. With one welcome exception, every person I interact with on a regular basis here is a teacher or somehow affiliated with a school. I know, or I hope, that at some point my life will begin to have some balance again. Workin' on that. But it's hard. I'm immersed. I have to force myself to leave school and teaching behind occasionally for a few hours.
Can I extend this metaphor? Can I tell you how the cycle of planning, teaching, adjusting, planning, grading, adjusting is like the waves that simply never let up?
Can I tell you I don't actually know how to swim?
[REQUIRED MTC BLOG: TWO QUESTIONS]
What is my favorite time of the day, and why? I think I have to say it's setting my room for the next day. I know, I know, you're thinking it's because it's the end of the day and I'm about to go home ... but that's not it. Yes, it's the end of the day, but it's also the beginning of another.
It's the time between. A threshold. Entre chien et loup: Between the wolf and the dog. The French idiom for twilight, when the light is just dim enough that you can't distinguish between a wolf and a dog. It's also used in a more symbolic sense as a threshold between hope and fear, the familiar and the dangerous. And that's kind of where I am in that time.
At first, I would get my room and the boards all set just out of a sense of responsibility, thinking that I should close the loop between that afternoon and the next morning. The old publishing production habit of eliminating all possible variables because something you haven't thought about yet will surely go awry.
But now I find a wonderful sense of peace in that time. I've written before about Camus' essay on the Myth of Sysiphus -- probably one of my favorite pieces of nonfiction writing --- and I think this hour or so in my classroom is when I feel closely tied to its spirit. There's the obvious metaphor: returning each day to repeat what seems like a futile mind-numbingly difficult task. But Camus was interested not in the struggle to get the rock up the mountain, and not in the tragedy of its repeated descent, but in the moment of Sysiphus' turning, his moment of awareness of his fate.
At each of those moments when he leaves the heights and gradually sinks toward the lairs of the gods, he is superior to his fate. He is stronger than his rock.
I feel that strength each day at this time. I feel stronger than, and ready for, anything that will happen in that room.
The other question: Why should someone apply to Mississippi Teacher Corps? I'll tell you why not to apply: You're not sure what you want to do next, and this seems like a good way to kill two years while you decide. You've never been in the South and are curious about it. That's like saying you're curious about mountains so you're going to climb Everest.
I will tell you that you should really want to do this before you get here. You should be passionate about what you want to do here, and at the same time ready to admit that you will probably not be able to accomplish that goal. But you will find a new goal that you've never dreamed of yet. I've done a few more things in my life than most of my colleagues here, and I will still say, as they do, that this is right up there with the most difficult. (Considering that giving birth did not last 2 years with a one-month break next July)
Please visit first if at all possible. See the Delta. (There's room in most of our homes for you.) Read the blogs and talk to us. Invest in a really good 3-hole punch.
Read Sysiphus.
Everyone comes to a crossroads whether by choice or by circumstance. I've chosen.
This blog is to chronicle my experience in the Mississippi Teacher Corps, a 2-year alternate certification program in which I will also earn a Master's in Curriculum and Instruction. I will teach English in a critical-needs Delta school.
Part of the program's requirements will include keeping a blog with some assigned entries. Since teaching is by its nature a reflective practice, this seems like a good idea, and I hope to use the blog for reflection on all aspects of this experience.
I'm not just moving to the Delta: I am leaving behind an 18-year career as art director and production manager for American School Board Journal and other publications at the National School Boards Association. I'm leaving the majority of my 50 years of living in and around Washington DC.
This is a change I've worked hard to earn. I'm scared to death.
I'm hoping to learn from your comments as well.
UPDATE:
Circumstances are that I will be delaying the move to the Delta until 2007, but it will happen. Meanwhile, I find myself with a liminal year. While it's not exactly what I'd expected, it's still a crossroads. It's the time that exists between my two lives. I don't, however, intend for it to become simply some time I spend while I wait for a new life to begin. It will have a life of its own and will serve to help me define myself in the context of movement forward.