Judysnotes’s Blog

The nearest restroom to my classroom isn’t the faculty restroom.  It’s a student restroom that has doors that are..let’s say… less than perfect (they don’t latch very well, let alone lock).  I was in a hurry, and I figured that since it was during a time when students were in class, I would be safe to make a quick pit-stop.  So, I took my chances.  I had just sat down when I heard some girls come bustling in.  Of course…one of them, not realizing anyone-let alone a TEACHER, was in there, flung open the stall I inhabited.  There I was, in the stall, seated in front of three of my sixth grade students.  Thankfully, I was completely covered, but seriously!  So, if you were the student, what would your reaction to this be?  Here’s a multiple choice:

A. Yell at the teacher  for  using the student bathroom.

B. Start crying.

C. Stand in a circle in the restroom, laughing, saying “I can’t believe I threw the door open on Mrs. McGill!”

D. Run like the wind out of the restroom, hoping the teacher (me) won’t realize who it was that threw the door open.

Guess which choice my students chose?  I would have most definitely chosen “D”.  Not my students.  No!  They went with “C”!!  So, I waited, thinking they would eventually realize that the proper thing to do would be to run out of the restroom, but they just kept staying in there, forgetting that I was still there.

I finally gave up and came out of the stall.  I said to the red-faced girls:  “Well girls, I guess you’ll be talking about this for quite awhile!  Don’t worry about it:  by the time you’re married and have kids, you’ll have forgotten all about this!”  It was one of the girl’s responses that explained their choice of letter “C” for me altogether.  She replied:  “Oh, Mrs. McGill!  My mother says I shouldn’t reproduce!!”  Enough said.

he-ro:  NOUN

1. In mythology and legend, a man, often of divine ancestry, who is endowed with great courage and strength, celebrated for his bold exploits, and favored by the gods.
2. A person noted for feats of courage or nobility of purpose, especially one who has risked or sacrificed his or her life: soldiers and nurses who were heroes in an unpopular war.
3. A person noted for special achievement in a particular field: the heroes of medicine. See Synonyms at celebrity.
4. The principal male character in a novel, poem, or dramatic presentation.

Retrieved from:  www.education.yahoo.com/reference/dictionary/entry/hero.

I put this definition here to make a point.  I have heard it said over and over and over that Barak Obama is the hero of countless people – celebrities, friends, colleagues, and so on.  It’s everywhere.  A street in St. Louis has been renamed to Barak Obama Blvd.  We now can even purchase a coin with his picture on it.  I have actually heard the terms “saviour” and “messiah” used by the media to describe him.

Here’s my question:  What has he done to earn these labels?  He has won the presidential election.  He will be our president.  That’s the point.  He isn’t yet.  He WILL be.  I think it would be a magnificent idea to let him become our president before we elevate him to the level of hero.  To actually allow him to show what he is capable of accomplishing in the office before we put him on that pedestal – and begin renaming our streets after him.  I know, I know – he’s our first African-American president elect.  Well, half African-American, anyway.  I am very happy that we have finally broken that racial barrier.  It’s past time for that to happen.  But let’s be honest.  He hasn’t done anything yet, really.  Who knows what kind of president he will be.  It’s impossible to know that because he isn’t even the president yet.   Shouldn’t we just wait with all of the hero worship for awhile?  Maybe let him actually do something for the economy, make a popular decision or two or something?  I’m just saying….

Secondly – who can possibly live up to what the people of this country and possibly the world have set as the expectation for this mere mortal man?  Anything less than miraculous will fall short as his performance as president.  How can he measure up?  I worry about this.  I vigorously disagree with several of the things he stands for and what he plans to do.  But he will be our president and I am concerned for his welfare and that of his family.   We expect him to fix everything – and if he can’t, what will the consequences be?  Can he handle the rejection and disrespectful jabs the have plagued President Bush?  Will he choose to make the decisions based on what he thinks is right rather than what is popular?

We are a fickle people.  This love affair with Barak Obama may be aglow right now.   Why it even exists, I just don’t know.  If he deserves it remains to be seen.  I hope that in a couple of years I can write another entry that rebuts this whole entry completely.  For now – I’m just blown away.  Does anyone else feel the same way?

I came home to an empty house for the first time in a weeks today.  It’s eerily quiet.  The holidays are over, we’re back to work, and Kristi left this morning to head back to Texas to do her student teaching – the final phase of her preparations to become a teacher.  Butch is coaching a basketball game.  Everyone else is busy:  Mom is on a plane headed for Arkansas to visit a family friend.  Tiff, Jeremy and Logan are at the gym working out and swimming.   Once I completed two rehearsals after school, I came home, cleaned a closet, cleaned out a cabinet, ate some supper, and now I’m trying to decide if I should keep cleaning or relax.  It’s a difficult choice, but since tomorrow night will be another quiet night, I think I’ll just sit back, rest, and save the rest of the cleaning for tomorrow and the next day.  It’ll wait, right?  I was invited to join Tiff, Jeremy and Logan at the gym and I considered going, but as a former beloved youth pastor from our church so uniquely put it:  I sat down until the feeling passed!

I’m not sure as yet how I feel about the empty nest.  There are days when I enjoy the quiet, but it gets too quiet at times.  When Butch and I married, we immediately had a family of four teenagers.  Now is kind of like our honeymoon, after 12 1/2 years of marriage.  It still gets quiet!  I guess I’ll just have to borrow a grandchild to fill the silence and liven things up around here!  Now….there’s a thought!!!

Yuck.  My tonsils look like cauliflower.  For the past three days now, every time I swallow, it feels as if I’m swallowing razor blades.  I long for a  refreshing drink of cool water.  It’s excruciating to swallow my own spit.  Strep is a cruel bacteria.  It not only robs you of the ability to function normally, to sleep comfortably, to eat anything, or to drink a cool, refreshing drink of ANYTHING.  No:  it has the unbelievable ability to rob a teacher from one of the many perks that come with the profession:  SNOW DAYS!  I can’t believe I had to spend a perfectly good snow day cooped-up in my bed, trying to fight off this stupid ailment.  Snow days are supposed to be spent shopping.  First, you go out for breakfast, and then you go shopping.  Everybody knows this.  WHY??????

We just got back from our trip to Arkansas, visiting our friends, the Palenske’s (see Friends, Part II).  It was somewhat uneventful, as far as tragedies go.  Except for my locking the keys, my purse, our cell phones and everything else in the car when we made a potty stop for Logan at the Missouri/Arkansas state line.  It’s wonderful that we have OnStar.  It is amazing – they can unlock your car doors from a satellite!   However, you have to know the phone number to call to ask them to do this.  I have it programmed in my cell phone, which again, is locked in the car.  The clerk in the gas station was so nice to let us use hers, but we couldn’t remember the number.  I finally called Tiffany, my daughter, back home to have her call information to get the number and call us back with it.  I didn’t want the call to information to be charged to the nice clerk’s cell phone account.  Once we were able to get past the interference on the connection, Tiffany finally understood what I was telling her.  She called information, got the number and called us back.  We called OnStar, they asked for our password (which we could actually remember) and – voila!  The doors unlock in an instant!  Cool!  Incidentally, this is not the first time we’ve had to do this.

On the way down, Logan kept us quite entertained.  He is quite intelligent and inquisitive for a five year-old.  Sometimes he comes up with the funniest questions.  Here’s how his little mind thinks:  This is a conversation that we had.  Just to help explain – my grandchildren call me “Bean”.  I’ll explain that in a later blog.

Logan:  Bean, what’s your mom’s name?

Me:  My mom is your Nana.  Her name is Marilyn.                                           

Logan:  Oh.  What’s your dad’s name?

Me:  Grandpa Bill.  He’s in Heaven with Aunt Jenny.

Logan:  How did God make us?

Me:  I wish I knew.

Logan:  I know – He has lots of parts in Heaven.  He glues us together.  He has a glue gun and a glue stick.  (And then) What if you put your whole hand in your mouth?  (Random!!!)

Me:  I don’t know….

Logan:  Your hand would get stuck in your throat.

Me:  No it wouldn’t – I can put my whole hand in my mouth.

Logan:  No you can’t!

(Kelly, this is for you!)  So….I put my whole fist in my mouth like my best friend Kelly and I used to do in high school just to prove that we could.

Logan looked at me with those huge eyes and said:  Um…is it stuck in your throat?