Wishing Upon A Star



November 8
Getting Sick?

Listening to: Meat Loaf- Very Greatest Hits

Reading: Ransom Julie Garwood

Weather: 40, sunny, COLD!!

Trivia: Why are pretzels made in that twisted shape?

The crisscross shaped pretzel was the creation of a medieval Italian monk, who awarded pretzels to children as an incentive for memorizing prayers. He derived the shape of his confection from the folded arms of children in prayer. The origin is supported by the original Latin and Italian words for "pretzel": the Latin pretiole means "little gift," and the Italian bracciatelli means "small arms." Thus, pretzels were gifts in the shape of praying arms. Soft pretzels, such as the type purchased from vendors in the mall, are more like those made in medieval times than the crunchy, smaller items bought in bags at the grocery store today.

Cool word: electric [adj. ih-LEK-trik] Something that is electric holds, carries or uses electricity [n. ih-lek-TRIS-ih-tee] or it is exciting, thrilling, or charged with emotion. Example: "Just before the fireworks show, the atmosphere was electric with the crowd's anticipation." An electron [n. ih-LEK- tron] is a particle of negative electric charge. The basic principle of all electric machines is the reunion of separated electric charges, with negatively charged electrons flowing through the machine toward a positively charged absence of electrons on the other side. This separation of charges is reflected in the word's origin. The Latin root was electrum (amber, fossilized tree sap). When amber is rubbed with certain materials (for example, feathers or wool), an electric charge develops as many electrons are collected by one material and lost by the other.



I think I may be coming down with a cold. I thought it was allergies, but I’ve been sneezing all day and I’m starting to get really congested. My head is definitely clogged. I also have a slight fever.

It figures. The show is this weekend and I need to be able to sing and run around to get things organized. I’m not surprised that I’m getting a cold at this point. The kids have all been sick and the weather has been funky.

I’m going to start popping zinc and vitamin C and enchinea. I think I have some of those Cold-eze tablets around, too.

It may all be old wives tales, but I figure it can’t hurt to take this stuff.



I managed to get a good amount of testing finished today. I had enough time to complete the testing on one of the boys and got about a third of the way through with the other. Writing the reports is a pain, but finding the time to get the testing done is the most difficult task. At least once I have the test scores I can move back and forth to the reports.

I don’t know where the rest of the time is going to come from though when I look at this week’s schedule.



I flipped out at one of the middle school teachers last week. She was at the reading class Thursday afternoon, and came to talk to me about a couple of the kids we sent up to the sixth grade. Two of my favorites were brothers, Jon and Justin. Jon is deaf, wears dual hearing aids, and is dyslexic. He’s also one of the sweetest children you’ll ever meet. His brother is slightly learning disabled, but has a lot of emotional baggage, and can get into trouble easily. He doesn’t trust anyone and is waiting for everyone he trusts to abandon him.

Jon is having a difficult time with the middle school curriculum, so they’ve had to lighten his course load. That’s not a big surprise. They weren’t willing to listen to me when I was making recommendations last year. But Jon will be fine.

Justin is apparently getting into trouble on a regular basis, so this teacher, this SPECIAL ED TEACHER, my sixth grade counterpart, came up to me and said "That child is nothing but pure EVIL." I totally lost it. How can anyone call an eleven-year-old "pure evil"? What it means is that this teacher has not shown Justin the caring he needs in order to be able to trust and do what he’s supposed to.

The co-teacher and I worked really hard with Justin last year, and he had a great year, but he was tiring. We had to give him lots of time, attention, love and consistency. Once he realized we weren’t going to back down, and we weren’t going to toss him out, no matter how bad he was, he was able to do a decent job with the work he was given.

So to hear a special ed teacher say something like that make my anger boil over. She’s only known him for three months, how can she think that way? Granted you can’t love every child, and there are a couple I’d love to not have to work with every day, but my God, they’re CHILDREN!!! Most of the times it’s the parents that are the problem, and when you are with the kid things are great.

It’s a wonder my blood pressure didn’t go through the roof over this one.



I brought a stack of stuff home with me tonight. It all needs to be done immediately. I don’t think it’s going to happen tonight. I think it’ll be an early to bed night.

With drugs. Nyquil is something that will zonk me immediately. I need to be ready to hit the pillows immediately once I slug back the cupful of that stuff.

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