That’s where I’ve been…nowhere. And what have I been doing? Nothing.

Which is all pretty pathetic and whiny sounding. But I guess that is about it.

I’ve been on vacation this past week and managed to squander the entire thing. Several days were just spent on the couch, sleeping or watching the Olympics.

Of course part of the reason for this was my absolute total success as a klutz.

Two weeks ago yesterday I had gotten all sort of ambition and started to clean and toss stuff out. So I had a big armload of trash to take down to the dumpster, which requires tromping down the twenty-eight stairs and out to the parking lot where the dumpster is located.

Here comes the klutz part.

They do a really shabby job plowing my parking lot after a storm, generally leaving six inch piles of slush that freeze into ice chunks, never totally melting, and becoming mini-moguls.

I bet you can guess what happened. I stepped onto one of them (my arms loaded with trash) and landed flat on my face. Basically what I seemed to do was step on the ice with the outside arch of my foot.

Man it hurt!!

I ended up with a sprained ankle/foot and serious bruising. I was wrapped in an ace bandage and had to use a cane to get around. I took two days off from work, but had to go back to teach a special class I’m doing Wednesdays after school.

Even now, I’m still in pain and am taking Motrin, trying to keep off it, icing it and wrapping it if I have to go out anywhere.

I guess there’s no future for me in the Olympics if moguls are involved!

I have decided, however, that I might be able to handle curling.

I was fascinated by this "sport" and found it really amusing. I loved the way they screamed and hollered at the sweepers – especially when it was in a foreign language. Japanese was really great. I think of them to be so shy and reserved that to hear them yowling at each other was really a hoot.

I think I could be a "sweeper" though. You don’t have to wear skates, and just madly move a broom (or what I thought looked more like a "swiffer") down the ice in front of the stone. The scoring is still a bit of a mystery to me, but I really got a kick out of watching the matches.

Which probably is more of an indicator that I actually have no life!

I think the reason that I really haven’t written at all in recent months has to do with the really bad year that I’m having at school and that by the time I get home I have no desire to record anything that has happened.

Everything about this year has been difficult. The kids, the parents and the teachers that I work with. My caseload is so huge and I feel as if all that I do is run around trying to put out brush fires and slap band-aids on problems. I have no answers to these problems, and many of the difficulties that the teachers are dealing with have nothing to do with the learning issues of my kids, but more to do with the behavior of their classes in general. It’s as if the chemistry mix in every room is totally wrong.

And the parents don’t want to hear about it or be brought in to deal with any of it. We’ve even had to deal with incidents of fifth graders sexually harassing other fifth graders.

It’s unreal.

I’m really hoping that it will go away and I can forget all about it.

I did start to write an entry on December 8 but found it to be so boring and full of whining that I never bothered to post it.

The only cool thing that has been going on in my life is that I’ve sort of gotten into doing a "roots" search. I’ve actually managed to locate both of my grandparents at Ellis Island!

I found my grandmother right off the bat because her name was correct. Finding my grandfather was far more difficult. His first name was changed, and then spelled incorrectly. Then as it turns out our last name was spelled TOTALLY differently in Lithuania.

I feel like Alex Haley whenever I make a discovery, wanting to shout "Kunta Kinte, I’ve found you!"

I’m trying to do my mother’s side of the family as well, fortunately she has a second (or maybe third or fourth) cousin who has started this a while back and has a lot of stuff documented already.

This is still a difficult search, though, as the surname was Murphy and it might as well have been Smith it’s so common!

It’s very addicting to start this, though. One link leads to another to another and hours later I emerge from computerland, sometimes with no information at all.

Then I have my grandmother’s side to do as well, and that is also a common name, although I can at least get back to Ireland with them.

Considering my obsessive personality this is probably not a good thing for me to get involved with!

The apartment will never ever be thoroughly cleaned if I have even more reason to sit in front of the computer! I will also need to venture off to the other end of the state to see if I can get marriage and death certificates. These often have helpful information about names of ancestors and the like.

The chorus is still plugging along. We have our good rehearsals and our not-so-good- rehearsals, but we are singing and together and having a good time.

I think I’ve done a fairly good job of running the show for the last year, and still have a year left. The fact that we’re gaining new members is so encouraging, so it keeps me going.

That’s the update. I don’t make any promises as to when I’ll write again. It might be tomorrow, it might be two months from tomorrow. I guess I just don’t see any point in writing when I really can’t think of anything to say!