Dear...

Dear TAKS, Welcome to Holland.

Dear Carlos, please read all your answer options carefully, don’t just circle the first answer that looks good.

Dear Edith, use your good mind…don’t be ashamed of your intelligence and don’t be overly confident (you usually manage that balance well)

Dear Selena, for heaven’s sake, take this test seriously and be careful in your choices…if you do you’ll beat it…if you don’t it’ll trick you.

Dear Adan, today I looked at you and I saw a sweet little boy…sorry that on most days I see a pain in the neck. At this point, all I can do is pray for you child. Somewhere in there I imagine you can read. Sorry that it’s been 8 months and I haven’t been able to pull out of you any proof that you can actually do so. God willing I’ll get the chance to love and help you more next year than I have been able to this year.

Dear Humberto, you’re the silent, smart type. You’ll do just fine on this test…and in life. I find it intriguing and a bit amusing that you are a kickboxer.

Dear Jairo, TAKS has nothing on you! Kick some TAKS booty! Shoot for “commended performance”!

Dear Jesus, I enjoy your stories about your Chihuahua….I know that has nothing to do with the test you are taking right now…but I’m not worried about you and this test. (Oh…and just for clarification…Jesus Perez…not JESUS…I’m pretty sure the scriptures make no mention of Chihuahuas)

Dear Chris, my class hasn’t been tagged up with gang signs since you left…I don’t miss your graffiti…but I do miss you. Wherever you are taking this test…at whatever school you ended up in…good luck to you.

Dear Elisa, Juan and Gilberto, I’m sure you are each pushing very successfully through this test…keep going.

Dear Kevin, sorry I always, always, always get on your case…but must you always, always, always perform and behave in a way that falls so pathetically short of your potential…your incredible potential. It would also help if you were a bit less annoying…never-the-less, I’m pretty sure you will pass this test. See…that’s what bothers me…you could ACE this test, you could blow TAKS out of the water….but you’ll probably just pass.

Dear Jorge, I don’t know if you’ll pass…but I hope. I’m praying.

Dear Criselda, I know you think it’s strange that I understand you when you speak to me in Spanish…I think it’s strange too. You’ve only spoken about 3 sentences to me in English. I’m sorry that with you at a 2nd grade reading level and Elisa at a 11th grade reading level I haven’t been able to do much for either of you…but I wish you luck and pray that today is one of those days when you are less inclined to be completely defiant.

Dear Gabriel, you ask me for a bandaid everyday because you’ve accidentally injured yourself in one way or another…which sometimes leads me to question your intelligence…but in reality you are quite intelligent. I believe in you buddy. You’ve got this…you can pass.

Dear Room Full of 6th Grade LAT Testers, you are annoying me a great deal today

Dear Ms. Gentry, thanks for bringing Otter Pops to the 6th grade LAT testers I’m monitoring. Shows just a bit of understanding about how frustrating it must be to take a reading test in English without really even knowing English at all. Kind of an interesting move though after you lectured me for a good 20 minutes yesterday about how I wasn’t managing them well, had no authority in the classroom and I was allowing them too many privileges.

Dear Swine Flu, you’ve already shut down 3 HISD schools. If you’re gonna shut down Holland Middle School could you wait until after next Monday…that way all the 8th graders will be done testing and you could just close us down for the rest of the year.

Dear New Computer, you’re pretty chill

Dear Blog…here ya go.

Dear Anyone Who Might Read This and Knows How to Blog, how do I make my blog pretty?

Friday the 13th

Ah yes...Friday the 13th...never had a problem with it before...never believed the superstitions ...but alas...today has proven to me that the theories about Friday the 13th could in fact be valid. (and indeed that last sentence has proven to me, and to all of you I hope, that one can adequately convey meaning in a written sentence whilst using "..." in replacement of any valid form of punctuation...this proving that punctuation is as useless as I have always believed it to be!...glad I'm an English teacher...)

Today at Holland Middle School there was a gargantuan fight, involving somewhere around 100 students playing some minor or major role in the fight. I like to refer to Holland's larger fights as "rumbles" because it reminds me of West Side Story even though, unlike the Jets and the Sharks, the Black and Hispanic gangs of Southeast Houston do not sing and dance their way through the streets.
It's an interesting sight to see middle school students being escorted out of the building in handcuffs. I've seen it before...one of my 8th grade students, a 15 year old (father of 2 mind you), stepping into a Houston ISD cop car with his hands cuffed behind his back. (Guess it's illegal to bring large amounts of Marijuana to school...go figure!)

As I walked out to my car during my planning period I counted 9 cop cars in the round about in front of our school.

Chaos was in the air...and apparently chaos is highly flamable, because in the wake of the afternoon rumble, a school bus that had arrived at the school early to pick up students, pulled up to the school and proceeded to light on fire.
It was a good thing that at that point the number of cop cars in the round about was reduced from 9 to 4 because it made just enough room in front of the school for a flaming bus and the fire engine that soon followed.

Here's to Friday the 13th...my hat is off to you.
and here's to Spring Break! You couldn't possibly have come at a better time!

Testing...1,2,3

Don't get excited people...this is just a test.

I'll have to figure out if I believe it is ethical to use part of my planning period to write/vent on my blog....if so perhaps blog posts will be more frequent.

Goodbye for now!

The Blog

FONT... Times Courier
Gerogia
Veranda Trebuchet

Wait a second...these different font options pretty much look exactly the same.

After months and months of resisting the Blog movement that swept the nation, and most particularly my family, I have finally broken down and created a blog.
However, my first order of blog business, finding a suitable font, has left me quite disappointed.
The disappointment was softened slightly when I found out that there is a font called "font"...and yet...I have a feeling that the font called font doesn't really exist....because it doesn't change anything when I select that font. Pity.

Other than that, my first blogging experience has been rather pleasant, though I still maintain that I have nothing interesting to blog about. However, the the present distance of my family makes it necessary for me to have some sort of medium by which I can stay connected to those I love in the far off lands of the west.

And thus I end my first blog

(what do I do now?...just push the orange "publish post" button? Ok...we'll see what happens....)