Chuck enjoys watching Storage Wars. I have mixed feelings. The “stuff” they find can be fascinating, and yet – these collections of stored possessions once belonged to someone, someone who cared enough to stash their possessions in a “safe” place. I always wonder about the back story on the abandoned units.
Tonight a unit contained a small kiln and a pottery wheel, neither looking very used. Did an artist make the investment and then have a financial disaster? Medical crisis? Self-employed artists aren’t known for having good health insurance coverage. Job loss? Maybe the day job that paid the rent fell through, downsized, or went out of business. Loss of space, home? That’s possible, too. A pottery wheel and kiln wouldn’t fit into a homeless shelter or transitional housing very well. There’s no way to know, and I wonder.
Another unit contained a unique set of tools for ice carving.The ice carving tools looked nearly new and must have cost the original purchaser a fair amount of money. An investment in their future, they may have thought at the time, never dreaming the tools would be lost due to non-payment on a padlocked storage facility.
This episode could have been nicknamed “Picking up the remains from the starving, broke artists.” Two artists: one with clay and the other with ice, both lost or broke or homeless or all three. The show’s premise, making money off of another’s misfortune, just isn’t sitting well with me. I can’t keep a potter or ice carver in business, but I can continue to appreciate and buy from local artists. And most of all, I can stop watching this depressing show.
Life changes all too quickly, it seems. Amigo moved home from his training program early and unexpectedly. Now we are searching for other training opportunities so he can enter the working world and be a productive young adult. We have a few leads, and the whole family is re-calibrating and setting forth on a new route.
Teaching in Wisconsin is insecure at best. In the current political climate, none of us are certain if or where we’ll be teaching in the near future, much less the long term. Talks at the lunch table and coffeepot reflect this.
On one hand, I continue to seek out opportunities to teach summer school. I attended an online meeting Friday that explained a lot of the ins and outs and details of teaching online summer school. La Petite, if I get hired, your old room converts totally to office space.
On another hand, a coworker suggested I sign up to review books written for young readers. Every time I review, we get a set of books free. As I submitted my first review, I noticed a check box on the form asking “Are you interested in writing children’s books?” I checked yes. The response was “Please call!” with a phone number.
But on the other hand (teachers have many hands), the latest virus (human, not computer) caused a persistent cough that led to laryngitis.
Re-calibrating! I sent a return email saying I’d call as soon as I could speak and included a potential project idea. At the very least, it will be fun. Even if it’s only a few bucks, the exposure will be priceless.
Sorry for the sorry posts, blog-reading peoples. It’s been both physically and emotionally exhausting around here. A few random updates, maybe.
My television interview for school PR probably didn’t air. My feeling is that it won’t. PR rep claims it already did. I’m okay with it either way.
My cough echoes at least two others in my little cubicle world. I think we’re all coughing a little less. I think. Maybe. Picture me grasping onto straws of hope.
Three – not one, but three – teachers sent out emails saying their virtual class attendance had disappeared from the printer. My theory: these papers are hiding out with the mismatched socks that disappear from the dryer on laundry day.
Meanwhile, I saw yet another great PR piece for punctuation. Petunia, I know which will be your favorite.
Comma chameleon?
You might be in my home if you see a pile of shoes and an overflowing bookshelf. There will be a laptop computer nearby, too. The refrigerator contains several jars of home-canned goodies such as pickles and jams and applesauce and… I’m hungry.
Any place Amigo lives, a singing fish is likely to follow.
In a corner of La Petite’s apartment —
Bitty Bear is a traveler!
Note: since I took this picture, La Petite stenciled birds on the wall in the corner. It’s lovely. The ballooning bear must be very content.
I’m fighting a virus. Bronchial cough, cold, headache, and exhaustion all together in one package. This is the first major illness since I left the contagion that is regular public school to teach virtual. Based on that, Chuck thinks it’s a computer virus. Ha. Ha. Cough.
My television interview might finally air locally. I’m not sure what angle the reporter will take; she seemed to be a bit scattered. I think I sent her in the direction of the PR that we really wanted, rather than focusing on me.
Amigo is coming home. The Hogwarts program is excellent, but he is simply not fully ready to live and cope on his own. It’s heart wrenching for all of us.
Laundry. These usual chores don’t go away, even when the world is spinning in reverse. I’m sitting next to the humidifier while the washer spins.
Parent-teacher conferences happen this week. At our school, we put in the hours, but we meet or call very few parents. Why? We are in touch with them regularly as it is. Our virtual school’s structure increases communication with students and parents. It’s one of my favorite parts of teaching at WCA.
Meanwhile, I’m looking for comfort food. Chicken soup, perhaps, to soothe the body and all of our aching souls.
It might not be Gryffindor Tower, but it has all the important comforts of home.
Amigo’s Apartment
From left to right: TV, bean bag chairs, and singing fish. Who could ask for anything more?
Well, people, Amigo is settled into his apartment and we are trying to get used to life as empty nest types. It’ll be easier when we’re sure that Amigo is successfully settled into his uptown apartment and actually feeding himself regular meals. Meanwhile, you can review the internal evidence that Hogwarts does, indeed, exist in Minnesota.
A few days ago, you saw the outside and the entrance to Minnesota’s answer to Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Now lets follow Amigo and his parents (Daisy and Chuck) as they scope out the fascinating place.
The director has a huge working fireplace in her office. Many other rooms have fireplaces, but none are this big.
Speaking of rooms, when I asked to use the rest room, they showed me to the hidden door in the wall.
To get to the second floor, we had to go up the ancient wooden steps. Luckily, these stayed in place; none of that bad habit of changing directions every other Tuesday. Or was it Thursday?
On the second floor we were certain that this was a division of Hogwarts, U.S.A. Could these lampholders exist anywhere else?
There’s more to behold – later. For now, the answer to the above question. How many staircases are in the Hogwarts castle? Well?
142, of course. “…wide, sweeping ones; narrow, rickety ones; some that led somewhere different on a Friday…”
Oh, the white thing in the top picture? I honestly don’t remember. Maybe it’s the mansion’s ghost, Mrs. Pillsbury. She’s supposed to be friendly.
Readers, Amigo is enrolled at this historic mansion now. Given his outgoing and friendly nature, Mrs. Pillsbury is probably giving him tours of all the secret passageways.
We moved Amigo into Gryffindor Tower today – I mean, we moved Amigo into his apartment for the duration of his session at the training center for the blind. Why Gryyffindor? You don’t think I’d land him in Slytherin, do you? Be realistic, you muggles, you. Here’s a memoir of our first visit to Hogwarts in August.
The Hogwarts Express, Part I:
We called a cab to take us from our hotel near all the modern travel amenities (like the airport and the Mall of America) to the NFB Training Center in Minneapolis. Amigo is planning to attend one of the centers, and this one is high on the list. The taxi driver, however, wasn’t so enlightened. He fiddled with his GPS, asked us if we were sure of the address, and called his central office before he could get us on the road. When we got to the destination, I realized why he couldn’t figure it out on his own.
We walked along the stone (concrete?) fence and saw —
…these creatures guarding the gates. Then up the steps to the front entrance:
I’m not sure what’s guarding the main door, but it’s big and ornate. Looking more closely, we saw this.
Oops, wrong British novelist. Anyway, the mood was set.
The cabbie must have been a Muggle. The mansion was obviously Minnesota’s answer to Hogwarts School for Witchcraft and Wizardry, bewitched such that ordinary non-magical folk would never know it was there. If he could have seen the mansion, he might have seen this.
There are too many details to share in just one post. Stay tuned: you’ll enjoy more of the Midwest’s answer to Hogwarts. Just wait. I need another butterbeer to quench my thirst before I continue.
It was one of the average days at the lunch table and an average teacher conversation these days – what to do if we get laid off, our salaries go down, the governor gets his way, or all of the above. It was the kind of day when we reflected on our own capabilities and wondered aloud where our futures might lead.
One of the more productive discussions came about through mention of LinkedIn. Many of us have LinkedIn accounts, but few of us are actively using the site. This discussion led (all discussions lead somewhere until we turn at the fork in the road) to skills and resumes.
Teachers, we realized, develop many professional skills beyond classroom teaching. Heck, we virtual teachers learned new ways of delivering instruction as soon as we stepped in the door. When I opened my LinkedIn account and started to check off skills, I was pleasantly surprised. As we sat around the table and listed each other’s strengths, we started feeling more confident and even a little calmer.
Time management. Prioritizing. Meeting deadlines. Learning new software and doing it quickly. Organization. Keeping records. Analyzing. Reading. Writing. Making coffee. Okay, I slipped that one in just for fun.
The point, if our lunch table group had a point, was that we are skilled professionals. We’re not “just” teachers. We teach and we do much more. If public education goes south in a handbasket, each one of us will find a way to make a living, pay the bills, and feed the family.
And if public education crashes and burns under stupid state programs, er, ineffective policies, the children of today and tomorrow will suffer. And that, my friends, is the real loss.