apocatim's Xanga

All in a day's Shirk...

Tue, 20 May 2008 19:12:18 GMT

I don't like it when people talk about "I'ma get ghetto up in here!" I like it even less when people actually GET "ghetto" up in here. But today I found myself "getting ghetto" twice.

The first time was in Spanish. I was called down to the office to find that two of my kids are running a little "balloon buck" racket out of my classroom. We give balloon bucks for good behavior and the kids spend it on going to school dances, parties, or buying pencils and crap from the school store.

One of my girls stole 38 (that we found) and one of my boys took 18. They claimed that I left a pile of them on a table and said, "help yourself!"

"Asi te dije!? No me vengas con este cuento, mijita!" (in English: "I said that? Don't come to me with no story, lil girl!"). Tacky border Spanish doesn't translate so well, but you get the gist. I tore into those kids. It wasn't the first time they stole from me. I have NEVER had kids steal from me, and I've been doing this for 6 years now.

The second time was also a kid. I found one of my kids in the same office. One of my sweet kids. So I read the referral and she had called her teacher a "street bitch" and several other choice words saying she shouldn't tell her what to do (All of these kids were third graders. THIRD GRADERS!).

I was so pissed because I have worked so hard with this kid to get her reading near grade level (She's gone up 1.7 years in reading in just the last 6 months!). And again I let her have it.

"How you gonna trip like that? Why am I working to get you into fourth grade when you act like that?" I went on and on.

This was one of those days when everything you work for in the kids just sort of crumbles into a lumpy gray ick, but it's the end of the year and these things happen. Tomorrow's another day and I know three kids who won't be going to a certain school dance this Thursday....

My Cultural Lens

Thu, 15 May 2008 18:09:03 GMT

My Blog is getting a little too political these days, but please stay tuned for more airheaded banter next week!!! I promise!!!

So my little school district is pretty widely known for confrontational parents. We have had people get out of their cars to beat each other up (happened before I got there) and we have had parents come into the office cursing and yelling. It happens much more often than in Austin. So that's the background.

A few days ago, I was talking about this with one administrator and we both agreed the parents could, at times, get out of control (not the majority!). But the interesting thing is that she said, "Well it's mostly the Hispanic parents." I was completely dumbfounded since the majority of outbursts I have witnessed have been from Black parents (we have all races represented quite well, except white people, they left decades ago).

I took awhile to think about that. My background, as a graduate with minors in Mexican-American Studies and Mexican-American Urban Communities, was that the issue lies mostly with the Black parents. For her, an African-American, the issue is mostly with Latino parents. Since my Master's was in Multi-cultural special education, I can discuss cultural issues for days, so this gave me a lot to think about.

In other news, we've all heard about the California Supreme Court giving the thumbs up to gay marriage. That's not very interesting to me. The bigger victory here, personally, is that the Supreme Court recognized Gays and Lesbians as a "suspect" class. That means that any discrimination case dealing with Gay and Lesbian issues now has access to the California Supreme Court with a precedence that discrimination against this group is wrong (unconstitutional).

So! All that to say, if I ever find myself teaching in Riverside, Orange County, Fresno, or some other conservative part of California, I would have greater protection against being fired for being gay. How cool is that? Whether or not the Gay marriage approval holds up, the blow against discrimination is in place. That's quite nifty.

TV!!

Wed, 14 May 2008 20:37:26 GMT

Well, I got my economic stimulus deposit today.

After paying all my bills online, putting a hefty sum into my savings account, and budgeting for the rest of the month.... I decided to blow the rest. I did my part to stimulate the economy.

I promised myself I was going to do something good with this money, I wasn't going to blow it on magic beans. But that's pretty much what I did. I bought a GYE-Normous Television.

It's a 37" HDTV. It's huge! I had to move my coffee table and turn that into my entertainment center. I'll get a new entertainment center soon enough.

I couldn't help it. I wanted to get a simple 25 inch regular TV, but those were ugly and small and poor people were hanging around them. Then I met Chang, or Scott, I forget his name, but he guided me to the primo wall and made me forget all about the horrible tube TV's and the less than savory crowd they attract. He showed me this TV that was on clearance and worked with the coupon I got off the internet. So I bought it.

Now I need to save up for an HD DVD player and other cool accessories it needs to optimize my viewing experience.

A shift?

Mon, 12 May 2008 20:00:05 GMT

Joel Osteen, whom I have badmouthed for years, has once again proven that I should research my hate list more thoroughly before making up my mind. This weekend he met with Jay Bakker to discuss issues of inclusivity of Lakewood Church's LGBT population.

I really expected him to dodge the conversation from which he had nothing to gain. He's hugely popular as an author and the leader of America's largest church. Yet he decided to spend mother's day talking with a leader of a group working to advance the plight of Gay and Lesbian families.

Stephen Klineberg, whose foundation at Rice University has researched trends and attitudes in the Houston area since 1982, notes that this is part of Houston's changing attitude towards the GLBT community.

He says, "One of the most powerful predictors of area residents' attitudes toward gay rights, as powerful among religious fundamentalists as it is for the more secular respondents, is the simple question, 'Do you have a personal friend who is gay or lesbian?'" -Houston Chronicle

So is our city, long noted as one of the US' most diverse cities and THE most diverse city in the South, moving towards greater acceptance?

Anise Parker, openly Lesbian Houston City Controller, is rumored to be the successor of hugely popular mayor Bill White who will be out of a job soon due to term limits (and is considering a run for Governor as a democrat). She has won re-election several times and served for several terms on Houston's City Council, despite her attendance at the annual pride parade and open lifestyle.

Montrose, our little gayborhood is increasingly becoming a gentrified upper-income community catering more to yuppy heteros as GLBT people are scattering across the metro in search of more affordable housing bringing more diversity to the burbs.

My own little suburban school district has MANY MANY Gay men in very powerful and influential positions.

Resurrection, the largest MCC (gay church) community between the two coasts, is building a monstrous renovation and addition to its Timbergrove location (almost all of our gay friendly churches are outside of Montrose now).

Zip Code 77036 (around the Southwest Freeway and the Beltway) is said to be home to the largest gay male Latino family concentration in the US according to figures from Census 2000 (Don't ask me how they got this statistic, I just read it in the Chronicle a few years back).

So maybe Joel Osteen does have something to gain from meeting with Gay and Lesbian groups to discuss inclusivity. Maybe he has a lot to gain from ALL culturally and linguistically diverse groups to discuss inclusivity issues. Perhaps defining his church as a place that extends and advances the message that God loves everyone helps build a community that truly opens doors to those marginalized by traditional religion.

Can a Christian church survive inclusivity? Can we really have a community if there is no one to exclude?

Maybe one day there will be no excuse for skipping church. Or perhaps it will just make those doors a little less scary.

Blessed are the Geminis, for they might make a decision.

Thu, 08 May 2008 23:24:42 GMT

I can be intensely critical of myself. It seems like no matter how much I achieve or what I do, there's always fault. I think I get it from my mother (Isn't that every gay man's excuse?). There's a rain cloud to every parade, there's a flaw in every silver lining.

In three weeks I start a new job, move into an office, put up my shiny diplomas and get a leadership title on my name, but how much farther could I be if I hadn't squandered five years on my bachelor's? I was slated to finish in three years, but I moved and changed and dropped.

Or what if I had tried harder in grad school? Or stayed in to go through the PhD. program?

In September I will make my last payment and be debt free. But what if I had been smarter with my money and not gotten credit cards or a fancy SUV? I could be in a home by now! I could be paying on much better things!

If my weight goes down, I must be sick or it's a fluke or I need a new scale.

If my weight goes up, I'm ready to change my name to Jabba and call my realtor to inquire about any foreclosed huts on the market.

I think that's a typical obsession, and as Jennifer Saunders so wonderfully put it, "I'm not saying I want to be a super model, I just want to wear my clothes without being marked by them."

The Other Tim....
It's like there's this parallel Tim in my head... well he goes by "Timothy." He made all the right choices. He stuck with them, he saw them through. Parallel Tim is currently in Suburban New Jersey, a townhouse on the palisades with a Manhattan view. It's not forever, but it's a step for him. He's been with his partner for 10 years now and he designs highways and communities for a consulting firm. In a month or so he'll be getting that new Volvo convertible. He has never had a critical thought, never heard of self-doubt.

Rev. Carol Trissell did an awesome sermon called, "The Funerals End Today," about getting over all the things you're not, the things you never did, and the things you did that will kill you if anyone ever finds out so that you can live in the fulfillment of who God has lead you to be. To move forward with nothing holding you back, to lunge freely, without anchors into the ocean of grace.

So the lesson for ME is in knowing without a shadow of a doubt that nothing is random, nothing just happened. For me, every choice, every relationship, every fashion, calorie, kiss, shout, heartbreak, joy, sickness, push and shove, give and take; everything that has touched the wet clay we call Tim is part of a greater plan.

That it's much more important than where I am right now or what I am doing right now, that it's going somewhere. Not just somewhere, but a very specific place, to the fulfillment of who I am to be, to God's purpose for my life. There's been way too many coincidences and lucky landings, too many places where I should have been shot, run over, killed (I was a REALLY DUMB teenager!). This has to be leading to something really swanky.

I am a hideous, wasteful, sloth of a man

Tue, 06 May 2008 20:32:41 GMT

A few years ago, I found myself in a classroom in Mexico surrounded by a large group of college students from Paris. I didn't get along with the majority of them, mostly since I had trouble with their suspiciously French-sounding Spanish (not that I speak proper Castillian by any means). Anywho, we had a group discussion on social issues in Mexico and the teacher, MaLu, listened to us debate and philosophize for an hour before stopping us, shaking her head, and saying, in Spanish, "You are all obviously not from the 3rd world." The Frenchies hated being lumped in with a Texan!

I thought about that last week when I opened my water bill. Eleven Dollars! One month of water was eleven dollars! I have NEVER spent 11 dollars on water! I know that is normal for most people, but I don't waste water! At least I didn't think I did! My normal water bill is between 4 and 6 bucks. I could hear Señora Malu shaking her head and saying, "wasteful, gluttonous American! Que lastima!"

So I am now on Day 3 of water conservation. I am determined to get a $5 or less water bill this month.

The biggest change is that I switched back to Mexican-style showers. This means I get in the shower, get all wet, and then turn the water off. Then I soap up, shampoo, Noxema, whatever, and turn myself into a walking bubble bath. Then I turn back on the water and rinse everything off. This is what we did in Mexico City because you never know when the water will stop coming out of the tap.

I timed it and I spend an average of eight minutes in the shower. With the new water use, I use about two minutes worth of water. This means i can get four showers for the price of one! Now, if I can find someone to shower with me, we can get 8 showers for the price of one!

And then he invites a friend who invites a friend who invites a friend.....

So I am going to set aside any amount I spend less than 11 dollars. If it's five, I will set aside six, and so on.

Any savings will go to this charity:

Drop in the Bucket, which builds wells in Africa to bring clean drinking water.
http://www.dropinthebucket.org/Welcome.html

Save a drop, Save a life!

Lemon tree, very pretty.

Sun, 04 May 2008 22:14:29 GMT

Lemon guy died today. I buried him at trash.

I first met him in 2003 at a Chinese thrifty shack on Harwin. He was two dollars and well worth it. A lemon with yellow plastic legs and an antenna coming out his head. He sat with me in the tub, or rather next to the tub since he's afraid of water. He only got FM stations, but he provided hours of quality listening during my relaxation time. He had a unique way of playing stations, an almost canny ability.

I think I dropped him one too many times. Today I tried to elicit enjoyment from him, but he was cold and silent. I picked him up, pressed him to my ears... silence. I shook him gently, perhaps he was napping, nothing but a death rattle. His official cause of death was insurmountable internal damage. His parts rattled around inside his plastic exterior.

I will move on, I will survive. I had my eye on this new fangled shower radio that actually gets am stations. Perhaps he knew my eye was wandering and sacrificed himself rather than compete with a younger, sleeker model. I'll never know, but I do know it will take time to move on, well, not too long since my 20% off at Bed, Bath, and Beyond expires next week.

So long, faithful lemon. I hardly knew ye.

WGD's

Tue, 29 Apr 2008 18:49:25 GMT

Bush quote of the day "I don't have a magic wand to wave over gas prices, I don't have that right now."

Really Mr. President? Will you be obtaining this wand shortly? Could it be in Iran? Should we attack there? Oh Let's do it!! They have Wands of Gas Destruction.

Ok so I have blogged about one of the teachers on my team before. The one with hearing issues and just plain weirdness. Sometimes I refer to her as scooby snack. She still sends me copies of emails she sends out, mistakenly thinking I'm her supervisor.

So today I got one in which she was badmouthing our district supervisor. I literally yelled, "Oh Dear God!" and covered my mouth when I read it. She put it in writing, sent it to people who don't even have any control over or association with her situation. Plus this is the last person you want to attack. Don't poke the bear!

There is a difference between standing up for yourself or presenting your case, and throwing rocks at a lion. I don't understand it. Plus she was wrong! The info she presented proved her wrong!

When I talked to the supervisor she attacked, she laughed and said, "Who taught her how to use the computer? This is your fault Tim!" Seriously though, this lady is toast.

I really feel bad for this lady. I just can't save her. Lost... Cause...

Ready for Week 5.

Sun, 27 Apr 2008 22:33:57 GMT

I spent a good chunk of my weekend working on paperwork for this week. I wanted to get it all done and out of the way, so I camped out at Starbuck's for a few hours and wrote until my hand cramped up.

Why is it that I can get all spiffed up to go out and no one tries to pick me up, BUT sitting at a coffee shop after walking the trail, all sweaty and gross with my UH hat on, and I get some guy trying to make flirty conversation. It happens often! More than I care to discuss. I had a table full of confidential paperwork, so I shooed him away.

I also devoted a few hours to getting things set up for next year. I am still working on crafting my proposal for how things will run. I have talked to two other department chairs to see how they run things and gather their wisdom. It's amazing how much info you can get out of people! People love to be helpful. They like feeling they have made a huge difference in someone else's life. However, there is a fine line between mentoring and mooching. The trick is to not seem like a mooch otherwise they will cut you off.

I also set up my little homemade calendar (You can do ANYTHING in Powerpoint!). It's still naked except for district holidays and staff developments, but soon enough it will fill with meeting dates and deadlines. I want to start August 25th fully prepared. You save each slide as a JPEG, then right-click and set as desktop. That way your calendar is in your face, inescapable.

Isn't it pretty?

I also drove around looking at townhouses in the outer Memorial area. They're surprisingly affordable! I guess the Houston market is beginning to tank like the rest of the country. Either way, the thought of a 2 bedroom townhouse with a courtyard within walking distance of the bayou trail has me salivating and adding a little extra to my home fund this month. If I can forgo buying a new TV and save my summer school paycheck, by the time next year's tax refund check rolls in, I will have a swanky down payment. SWANKY!

Boys are NOT FOR PINK!

Thu, 24 Apr 2008 22:04:41 GMT

I got an email from a guy who was my student teacher a few years back. It seems he's already throwing in the towel after two years of teaching. He wants to spend more time with his husband and find a job that pays better. That's sad.

I did a lot to inspire him. He was my first student teacher. Since I'm probably not going to return to a classroom position, he will also likely be my last student teacher.

I know the coordinator only put him with me because I'm gay and he's uber-gay and so it wouldn't be an issue.

He had a lot of promise. I put him with kids who only needed a little flick to make their little lightbulbs go on so he would feel successful. I also didn't load him down with all the downsides of the teaching profession. I left him excited and ready to take on the world.

Blossom on, little flower!

So what went wrong? Money? Teachers are never going to make money, it's a fact of life. Six years and a master's degree later and I'm still paying off student loans. THOUGH! I did find out today that special education teachers who work in poor schools for five years can qualify for a $17,000 reduction in their student loans. That would more than pay off my loans! So I'm going to check into it.

More than half of all new teachers leave within three years in the Houston area. We're pretty much the only profession where someone with five years of experience is considered a veteran.

So I wished him well, another good teacher ruined by the public school system of Austin.

Daily funny quote from one of my kids: "GIRLS ARE FOR PINK!!! BOYS ARE NOT FOR PINK!!" (In response to someone saying he had a pink blanket. He meant to say that pink is for girls and not for boys.)