Experiment: Success.

It's been over a week since I've written, and it's not because there's nothing to say. Things move and change as ever they did, and I've explanations for some of them, interpretations of some of them.

I unexpectedly got called in to sub the other day, and I went quick as I could, without knowing what grade level I was even in for. It turned out I was a reading teacher, who pulled out small groups from second and third grade every fifteen minutes to a half hour. I loved it-- it was a lot easier for me than trying to control a whole roomful of kids.. being reading support kicked ass. I got to work with ESL kids (from Turkey and Chile) and the slower readers, I suppose. We read scripts and did rhyming words, and talked about adjectives. I also spent some time just floating around as in-class support for some third grade rooms. My favorite moment was Craig's guileless face as we listened to the assignment given and he asked, "Will you help me?" We went to the back table and wrote a poem. I promise I didn't write it.. I just asked him questions til he did it himself.

Otherwise, subbing has remained relatively quiet. I may go hang out at the Junior Classical League convention at LHS next weekend and be a certamen reader, or something. A sort of last little goodbye/hurrah with the Latin kids.

Teaching GRE is going pretty well now. I'm getting used to having a very small class. It was difficult, a week ago, for me to believe I was going to leave because I didn't have enough work, but now that my KC job has come to its natural endpoint, I certainly can. I have a lot of extra time, now. I should be spending my extra time thinking about what it will mean to pack up the stuff in my room.

But I don't want to. It's begun to sink in, and people have begun to ask me not to go. That in itself is pretty gratifying. That in itself makes me want to pronounce the Kansas experiment a success. When they say I've become associated to sunshine and light, when we stay up laughing and sitting on the porch, I know I'll miss this.

It's finally gotten into the 80s of degrees two days in a row, now, and I'm wearing what skirts and dresses I have, just for the fun of it. Most of them are in GA because I brought them back in the fall; I didn't think they would fit in the car along with the sweaters on the drive home. All the windows are open, naturally, to let in the air and light. Today, I'll go shopping because my flip-flops finally became dangerous, and I have a twenty earmarked for "something fun." ;)

I haven't even seen Roommate in a couple of days, because our schedules are so off. He began his training for the census job he'll have for the next chunk of time, and so is doing the 8 to 5 style thing. I only work evenings and weekends anymore.. and since I have nowhere to be in the morning, don't really see a problem with hanging out until 3am on a Tuesday listening to people play guitar. Once I get up, he's gone.

So I spend my extra time being an arguably lazy girl. But I submit that I'm being responsible to enjoy myself, so I won't regret the time I had left in KS.

EmLem Enters Contest

I'm working on a little bit of content for a website sponsoring a contest. It's a travel guide type of thing, and if you post content before a certain date, you are entered. They evaluate you based on quality, so I'm going to put up a couple of things from a few places I've explored. I want to post them here, too, especially so I can get a little feedback before putting them up for contest. Wednesday, when I had to work in KC anyway, I went foraging for good photos.

So, here goes!


Kansas City's Country Club Plaza, also known simply as "The Plaza," is an open air shopping and dining district south of downtown. But unlike the close spaces of some shopping streets, the Plaza admits much air and light, and has a warm character unique to the place.

clock, from creekside

Personally, I'm a fan of gardens and greenspace, and the inclusion of this type of beauty in the Plaza area is what makes it special among sites of entertainment, shopping, and dining. The south edge of the district is bounded by Brush Creek, which has cherry trees and benches along its walkways for anyone inclined to take a moment to enjoy the sights and smells. I parked along the water, but there are several free parking decks scattered throughout the area to accommodate visitors. The area is also well-signed for those attempting to find the Plaza.

How to get where you're going

path down to the creekside

view of footbridge, from alongside creek

Here I ate my lunch.

There is plenty of opportunity for comers to spend their excess coin in all manner of recognized stores, fine restaurants and cafes, and specialty shops. For me, the best things in life are free; strolling around the district enjoying the spring blooms proved to be a great way to spend a good part of an afternoon. Police abound on foot, making the place feel quite safe. People in the district are friendly: a businessman offered me directions and suggestions for my exploration, and out-of-town visitors offered to take my photo when they saw me clicking away at the water features.

This fountain reminded me of Rome!

There are several hotels in the area as well.

Mill Creek Park is right next to the Plaza, with soft springy running tracks and open fieldspace.

This rather large fountain at one end of Mill Creek Park was under maintenance work when I arrived, gearing up for the spring season.

Penguin Courtyard; note J Crew on the left, Urban Outfitters across the street.

The Plaza's fountains are part of what give it fame. It also boasts a collection of various sculptures tucked away here and there along the bright pathways. Schoolchildren even take field trips to the Plaza to learn about these pieces. The look of the place has an Italian sensibility, not only for the roof tiles, sidewalks, and water spouts, but also because of the sculpture. My favorite was the replica of a bronze boar from Florence, Italy; in Florence, you rub the boar's nose for luck. KC's boar had a shiny nose as well, and the plaque below it suggests dropping a coin and touching the nose for Children's Mercy Hospital. Some of the fountains encourage the tossing in of coins, like the Mermaid Pool which also takes coins for the Children's Mercy Hospital.

A man tosses a coin into Mermaid Pool as families relax around the sides.

Florence marketplace boar

By the Cheesecake Factory, blue lady sits at the edge of the Bacchus Fountain.

Fun statue near the river

Pomona Fountain, families, et al.

The Mediterranean look and feel pervade the whole area. Also, I love tulips.

Finally, the Plaza is close to free art museums and the lovely Loose Park, which deserve posts of their own.

Be Where Your Feet Are

I am embarking on a few projects of organizational proportions. One involves writing, and one involves music.

I have resisted converting my media server to iTunes because I did not have an iPod. I have resisted having an iPod because they are expensive, and I am resentful of all the people that wander around with those little white buds in their ears. Inwardly, I scoff at the need to always being multi-tasking, the inability to just be in one place at one time. For their offense, iPods went right up there with iPhone and Blackberry, and any other phone which makes it too easy to divide one’s attention.

It has become exceedingly important to me to focus, to simply be where I am. I sometimes even become anxious just seeing other people disappear from their physical surroundings (mentally disappear, anyway) as a handheld device absorbs their attentions. My cell phone does not send or receive text messages.. not because the phone itself is antique or anything like that. I chose those settings, I had the service turned off. Mostly because they cost 15 cents a pop, and my friends seemed to text without much thought to that. Understandable, as most people these days have plans which include texting. I am sure that one of these days I will incorporate texting into my life, because I can see the benefits of it. For now, if something is important enough for someone to contact me, it's important enough for a phone call. (/text rant)

Even when I was in college, it amazed me how many people would be half-absorbed just in the walk across campus. I had a few high-powered days wherein I, in the space of time running from here to there, had to make a quick phone call, but as soon as I noticed myself slipping into a habit of 'needing to be on the phone' while walking, I put the thing firmly into my pocket. That ten minutes, or even just five, became an important breather. A moment to just taste the air, see the squirrels, notice the latest changed of vegetation, and hear the birds and wind. To just look around.

It's pretty amazing the peace of mind that can come with that moment to regather the self. I feel that attention splitters really do fragment us somehow, that if one is constantly checking football scores, one is not immersed in the Journey concert one is currently attending. Some of us don't even need devices.. we can worry about homework and tasks left unfinished all on our own.

"Be where your feet are," Erin said once when we were at Zen Zero (appropriately named for the advice of the moment). When your mind is somewhere else, you are not in two places: you are in no place at all.

Early in my Kansas life, I enjoyed going on walks to explore the park areas near my home. As I got better at these long walks, I began also to jog a little bit. But I still liked the freedom feeling that went with the simple open awareness... just me, my tennis shoes, the grass and sky. I like where my feet are.

(Currently, I am sitting in a coffeeshop in the south of Kansas City. Homer's Coffee House, chosen of course for its name, has proved to be a lovely place for me to spend some time. Today is my "Kansas City Adventure Day" which will be explained in more detail later.)

Somewhere Under the Rainbow

I realized sometime on Friday, as my actual position became more clear to me: I work for the man.

And not the good kind, not the life-affirming man. I work for the man I've never understood nor liked much.

Here's how this happened:

The school district in which I now make my meager living has to maintain a bunch of stuff in order to be accredited. This includes having a certain number of seniors making a certain level of scores on the ACT. Our current goal is getting as many people as possible to score over a 21.

Now I don't think I have to tell you how I feel about standardized tests; they are great for college, as long as they are part of an overall picture, but testing the hell out of our kids isn't going to make them smarter, or even see how much they know. It's going to see how well they take standardized tests. Once again, a fine skill for measuring college aptitude (I.. guess?) but not, I think, for judging a school's merits.

So what's happening is, this district needs to pull it up, so they've called in the experts. Kaplan really does have some sweet techniques that will make test-taking a lot easier for these students. But, they are seniors. And it's March. It's too late to be applying to school, so unless they are taking the year off, they have already either gotten into the school they want to go to, or they have decided not to go-- a higher score can help them personally because they can get more money from some schools, but mostly this is something that will help the school record and boost toward accreditation. They are now being pulled out of this or that class every couple of days so I can teach them how to better take the test.

And sure, they'll be kicking the crap out of the test, if they pay attention and put in a little effort. But they're missing real class for this, because somewhere high up there was a mandate that these kids within a certain scoring range go through a certain number of tutoring hours and retake the test. I feel bad for them, even as I am trying to motivate them to listen to me and do what I say.

I want to believe that I am helping someone by giving them the tools to improve their lives. I want schools to be rich and full of resources, and clamoring with kids who want to make the most of all of it.

It's about time for me to go back to Fantasy Land (GHP), eh?

Lilies

"Consider the lilies o' the goddamn field!" - Ulysses Everett McGill, O Brother Where Art Thou?

I've mentioned that my life is in a period of relatively rapid change. Change is proposed to me, I tend to say yes, and then perhaps even the next day I am in a slightly different life.

On the first day that I began to worry about the way substitute jobs have lately seemed sparse, I was called in the afternoon by Kaplan in Kansas City. I had been asked before by my boss in Lawrence if I were willing to commute at all to the KC center.. I said I was open to the possibility. I am open to a lot of possibilities, right? They do pay mileage in sitations like this, so it's actually kind of like getting paid to drive and listen to my CDs.

After a brief explanation, I shrugged and took the job, and promised to be at a high school in KC by 8am the next morning to proctor a diagnostic ACT in preparation to teach a shortened ACT course.

At this point, Wednesday, I was nervous and wondered if I'd made the right choice. With my life's sense of irony, I would probably get sweet sub calls for the next two days just because I now planned to be away (KC Thursday, and I was originally planning to take Friday off to drive to St. Louis for Vates' birthday celebration weekend).

But, as if to encourage me, I did not get sub calls for the rest of the week. And, one assignment that was scheduled for the future (which actually conflicted with my new job) notified me of its cancellation.

Thursday was predictably terrible. Commuting eastbound directly into the sun makes signs difficult to read, but I managed to only miss my exit one crucial time. When I got to administer the test, we had to move rooms, start late, and then go looking in other rooms for pencils and pencil sharpeners. Only about half the kids that were supposed to be taking the test had been notified, and out of that half, only about half showed up. The school gives me the impression that I, with my cutely-professional look revisited, my red hair up in a little bun, am distinctly out of place. It is a bit rough-and-tumble. I consider that Lawrence kids are wheat-bread eating happy hippie children in comparison. I am clearly not in Kansas anymore.

But to my delight, the administrator wants to make sure more kids get involved. I agree to come back the next morning to try again. This time, I bring a box of pencils, some erasers, sharpeners, and board markers. Friday is as much a success as it can be, given that our classroom is invaded during the reading test by a noisy group looking to use the computers we've left open. And I roll on to STL as planned, straight from KC.

So I feel very personally taken care of.