Death comes silently and suddenly

I was at a workshop today and happened to be talking to someone who works in the school where I was 3 years ago. I asked her how such and such was doing and then asked if she had been there while my friend Alyson still taught there, before she moved to California. "You know Alyson died," she said. I felt a strange compultion to argue with her and said, "No, she moved to California." "Oh, no, you didn't know did you? She had a heart attack or something and died last fall."

I can't believe it. I have thought of her off and on many times over the past few months and one of my summer goals was to get in touch with people I haven't talked to in a while, she was #1 on my list. How could I not have known? How in the world could she have been dead for 8 months and I didn't even know? I found this article about her death, but no mention in the Seattle papers at all. She said that there had been a memorial service...and I never knew.

1 AM and I am...

...thinking about choices. For the past two days the mysterious bird philanthropist has chosen to dump about a cup of what appears to be corn muffin mix on the sidewalk for (her) fine feathered friends.

Meanwhile, back at the bat cave, I have been debating my choice of career. I am currently in my 3rd quarter of an 18 month masters program in information systems at UW. I am also still teaching 8th grade full time. Am I nuts? Possibly.

I decided last fall that I needed to get out of the classroom and into educational software, and I still want to do that. The problem is that I still get so excited about wanting to try out new stuff with "my kids". I have been in workshops for the past 4 days and have been working so hard at trying to figure out how I will integrate what I am learning with current curriculum, how to convince others to buy in, how to finagle the supplies I need...and I love it.

The problem is that I am a great teacher. Sure, I have problems and failings just like everyone else, but I am REALLY good at what I do. I just can't stand being in a place where I can't get what I need to do my job, I'm not paid what I should be, I'm asked to do so many extra things that I am going insane, parents either don't care at all or are so strangely intrusive it's painful...So I won't do it anymore. This will be my last year as a teacher. I want to make it a really good one, but I am afraid that with all of the studying I have to do, it won't be. I am also afraid that I won't get a job. It would be terribly ironic to spend $45,000 on a degree, and torture myself for a year and a half only to emerge unemployed. It's a good thing I'm meeting with a career counselor tomorrow.

Fahrenheit 9/11

I went to see Fahrenheit 9/11 last night with my husband and some of his friends from work. It was really good. Really. It was funny, sad, shocking, silly, and unbelievable in points - kind of like Michael Moore.

We got to the theater at 8:20 and all shows were sold out, there was already a line for our showing (9:00). There were people there signing up voters and handing out flyers on how we can help to defeat Bush in November. It was a really diverse crowd - from "hippie" types to yuppies, senior citizens, different races, gay, straight, dressed-up and bummed out. It is the first movie in a long time that I have been to where people clapped and hissed at what was on the screen!

The connections that Bush has with the Bin Laden family along with his past business failures and partners in crime were a bit of a shock to me. So was some of the news footage that they showed. I haven't had a TV for almost 2 years so I haven't seen a lot of the footage of the war. I listen to NPR for most of my news, so I have heard - but it is an entirely different thing to see it. When I mentioned this to someone in my class today during lunch, they didn't know what I was talking about. Apparently they haven't really been showing these things on TV here - so much for a free media system.

For the Birds

There is a pile of bird seed on the sidewalk in a specific place every day, but I have never seen the person who leaves it. Some days it isn't really seed, it looks like instant potato flakes, and sometimes it's bread crumbs or stuffing mix, but it's always there. I wonder what kind of person goes to the trouble of putting food out for the birds on the sidewalk every day like that. It's not even in a pleasant area, there's no where to sit, or even a pleasant spot to stand so I doubt they watch the birds eating. Maybe they can see the pile from their window. I sometimes think I will watch for the person and see just who it is, but it's almost more fun just to wonder every time I pass the spot.