RhoYoshi

Thursday, April 19, 2007

all downhill from here

Josh is officially more than halfway through this program. So even though it is hard and seemingly eternal ... the end will be here sooner than it feels like. Yay!

School has really been sucking hard for me this week. My newest kid Ru has been a royal pita (lucky me, all my kids have been dubbed pita's by the school shrink, but he is the biggest of them all). Golly, but they have been more than we can literally handle. On the up side though? I gave them a math test this week and they did far above and beyond what I thought they could. I know that they will probably never thank me for all the really hard work that my aides and I put in for them, but it was like a big huge pat-on-the-back to see them know how to find the area of a shape, work out long equations using PEMDAS correctly, substitute in numbers for X, and the like. It really made me feel great because even though a lot of times they still act like a bunch of hellions, they actually are learning. They know more now than they did when I first started teaching them.

Tomorrow's big event? I'm walking them over to the local public library. It'll be an adventure, but I'm determined that they shall have library cards and pick out their own books to read during SSR (so that they can't complain about it) and so that they will build up a sense of responsibility. Also cool? We started our garden this week. My dad had a couple extra cantaloupe plants and even though our big 4'x8'x8" planters have not yet arrived, I showed my kids how to transplant the little seedlings into a bigger pot so that when the real garden time came they would know how it should be done. It was really cool to huddle down in the mud with them and show them what my dad taught me all those years ago. Also, when later on that day one of the elementary school kids lost his cool and kicked the clay pots and broke them, my kids stopped their various tantrums and came together to save the seedlings. We transferred the plant to a bowl and this morning we once more transplanted the little guys into new clay pots, only this time we are keeping them inside our room until we get the big planters. My kids are now starting to worry about how the other kids will probably ruin our garden. Oh my gosh! Actions have consequences and acting out in anger hurts others. Even if the garden never bears literal fruit, there have already been some good fruitful lessons from it.

Well, off to bed at 7:30. Do you realize that I'm getting about 10 hours of sleep a night? It's crazy I tell you!

Monday, April 16, 2007

back again

Spring Break was wonderful! We went to church two Sundays in a row (yes, both of us!) Actually, we tried out Evergreen (the all asian church) out and it was really great. I think that we might go back there again. Plus it was really cool to sit next to Ba-chan in church. She was in her element!

Over break Josh got through another week of, actually not quite so bad, academy. This Thursday he is officially half way through! Yay! The recruits had a party on Friday that involved a lot of laughing and alcohol ... between Josh and I we drank on shot of rum (in coke) and half a beer. That is to say I drank and Josh didn't. Also funny on the academy front? One of the awesome girl recruits, Lawson, who had to cut her hair super short for the academy and always spikes it up in a mohawk over the weekend, got caught by one of the TAC Staff at the range on Saturday with it in the hawk. TAC Officer A. was not so happy with it. Poor Lawson, but also a little funny!

I had to go back to school today. There were good parts (I got two hugs from my little guys, aww!) and one of my other seventh graders told off the psychotic foot-fetish older student for me, "Don't hit on my sister! Umm, teacher!" (was that a Freudian slip?) but my big eighth graders decided to act crazy. Not fun. Fortunately none of my students acted as crazy as the high schooler who thought that it was a good idea to bring a steak knife to school and threaten one of the other kids with it in the bathroom (given, the other kid had robbed him over the weekend of several hundred dollars worth of stuff, but still ...). He was taken away in handcuffs. The high school staff kind of suspect that part of why he did it was so that he would be safe in jail and miss the gang jump in that he is scheduled to endure this weekend. It's for the "crazy L.A." gang too ... and if a crazy kid thinks that a gang is crazy, then it must be super crazy.

So. Yeah. Oh! And my family is all doing well and I got to see them and spend some time with them over break. Very fun. And we have spent over $1,000 on car repairs and new tires for Josh's car in the last two weeks, not fun, but praise God that we can afford it right now (as compared to 5 months ago). See, crappy stuff in life does happen, but God really is gracious in the timing sometimes!

Please do continue to pray for Josh and I. That the academy will continue to go well for him (that he passes his inspection and practical application well tomorrow) and that my kids will calm down (please please please God!) and that the work I am doing in their lives right now will have some lasting good effect on them. Thanks and my love to you all!

Saturday, April 07, 2007

six years

Well, it's been six years and six days since Josh first asked me out. That is the anniversary that really matters to me. Our wedding really wasn't that important to me, especially as I hate weddings, but him asking me out is the date that I will always remember. Today was a good day, and it was special too. We were out having lunch with some friends, about eight of them, and there was a couple sitting next to us. They've been going out a bit more than a month and they were bickering back and forth. Today I realized that that couple is no longer Josh and I. We talked about it. We both agreed that we've both grown a lot. I feel like we've finally gotten over some evil tip of the iceberg and that we are finally right for each other. Last week we finally agreed that getting married to each other wasn't a mistake and that we really are meant to be together. It may sound silly, but it really has taken us six years to figure that out.

Today is also the first day in my life that I baked pies all on my own. I have no idea how they taste yet, but I baked three. One for Josh (an apple pie), and two for my family for Easter tomorrow (pumpkin pies). I discovered that I am horrible at rolling out dough. Auntie and Josh were there to laugh with me about it.

I am also not so good at drawing, but I really enjoy doing it. It is very relaxing, although I find it easier to draw when someone else gives me the subject.

On Wednesday this last week I had an Easter egg hunt for my kids around the classroom - and I copied Josh's family's way of it and had some of the eggs tell the Easter story about Jesus. That was pretty cool. It was their "history" lesson. On Thursday we dyed Easter eggs. My classroom carpet will never be the same color again, but they really enjoyed it. On Friday Mr. M., Miss. D., and I made the kids Easter baskets. That was a hit. Later on we joined the high schoolers for a relay race, which *ahem* my team won (I helped by eating a whole chocolate bunny in record time and nearly throwing up because of it), and then we had water balloon tosses and then a water balloon fight. It was incredibly fun!

Josh had a good week too. The TAC Staff laid off on his class because the new baby class is so bad that they needed remediation. I'd say poor baby class, but I hear that they deserve it. On their first day they had to call an ambulance for one of their guys after their p.t. session and three of them are already claiming to have an injury. Not so bueno.

Josh and I are finally sharing a life, and therefore a home. I have no idea where we will end up or what we will end up doing, but at least we will have great memories of, finally, loving each other well.

Monday, April 02, 2007

Playing Catch-up

So ... Friday was a good day, and today is Monday. A few things to catch up on ...

My boy Je- the little black boy who regularly greets me with, "FUCK!" every morning and then turns around and walks back out of the classroom (he comes back after a few minutes and continues along the same line), did not go to his court appearance last week. He came to school instead. So I pre-emptively struck him by offering him breakfast before he could yell out his daily greeting. Je is always hungry! So that morning started out differently for him. He also started taking his meds that day. The next day Mr. B, my big aide, taught him how to comb out his hair and make a fro. "You pick then you flick." It was a really cute scene. And honestly, a kid should not have to wait until he is 12 to learn how to comb out his hair. Apparently the process was somewhat painful for Je as the pick has yet to make a second appearance and his hair is getting quite nappy again. But since that day the meds have started working and he has said other words to me in the morning instead of fuck. It's been quite nice.

On Friday the new baby class came on compound and so the heat was finally off the Junior class. Yay! It was really cool for Josh and the other recruits too because they got to start seeing the more instructional side of the TAC Staff, which they really enjoyed. They also realized how over the last few months the TAC Staff have slowly eased up on them because they were shocked at how the TAC were yelling at the new recruits at full volume non-stop the whole time. They talked it over on Saturday morning and said, "Oh, yeah, they really did used to yell at us like that, didn't they?" It was rather amusing to me to watch them realize that, because from the way that they complain I would think that the TAC Staff had carried on just as brutally as they started, but apparently that is not the case. Hmm ...

Saturday morning Josh had a mandatory voluntary "fun run" ... which was actually quite fun for me! It was so freak'n cool and impressive to see all the recruits lined up, yelling jodies, marching together in step, dressed out and respectable. They were an impressive awesome sight, and it was really encouraging to me to see them because it helped me realize more and more that the work that I've been putting in on their behalf actually does have fruit. It was really cool to, to see the crowd's reaction to them. Everyone in the crowd was really impressed. Mothers, grandmothers, and fathers told their kids about how those people there are the heroes who protect us and complete strangers said, "hey, get out of my way lady, I'm trying to take a picture of these guys," to me, and when I asked them who they knew in the group they said no one, that they just wanted to take a picture of the cool sheriffs. Ha. I'm cooler. I know those guys. It also really brought to mind all of those stories I have read about the Napoleonic wars and how the armies had tons of wives (and whores) following them around. I got to be one of those wives on Saturday. I met two of the other wives on Saturday as well, merely by bumping into them over and over (all of us were taking pics of our awesome cool men) and finally I introduced myself to them, and we fell in beside our troops, talking about our common and different experiences. They were wives from class 178, and Josh is class 179, but as one of the wives put it, "you're still family." So true.

Seeing Josh get to be part of a big awesome group like that on Saturday also made me jealous. Although he is working hard, going through the program like he is, at least he had all the support of his fellow recruits. Us wives have nothing like that. I was also jealous because I still really regret not joining the military after high school. I've always wanted to march around in step in a big group of people all having a common purpose in life. It is such a neat way of belonging.

One thing that was hilariously funny about Saturday was seeing all the other recruits make fun of Josh's marching abilities. They are a really funny bunch. (Some of them did try and help him learn how to call the marches though, after they laughed along). He really is bad at it! This inspired us to spend an hour last night marching up and down our street. I played the part of the platoon, and he played the platoon sergeant, calling out commands and seeing if he could get me to stop at the correct spot. I can't tell you how many times he called out "left" when I was stepping down with my right foot! By the end of the hour he was better though, and his calling went a lot better today, although he still says that he sucks at it. I think that in our hour we also provided the neighborhood with a lot of amusement. Yup, we're serving the community already, in our own special way.

Today was an odd day at school. The morning was really good and peaceful. Apart from being called a slut by Co and a bitch by Ju, (Je actually didn't cuss all morning! I'm telling you, drugs are wonderful!), and my new kid Ru was being his great new self, my kids were really good this morning. He wasn't in class today, because he had a court appearance to see if he could go back and live with his father who now has a job and an apartment. I don't know how the judge ruled on that one. It would be better for the other kids if he went, because he is an incredibly distracting person, but I think that it would be better for He if he stayed because he is convinced that if he leaves that he will get into a lot of trouble out on the street and start running with the gangs again. So ... maybe I'll find out tomorrow what our fate will be. But this morning was really peaceful and easy (comparatively) without him.

Also cool is that the other teachers have started referring kids to me when the kids have a spiritual question, which I think is really just plain neat. Co, a few hours after calling me a slut, wanted to know more about if Jesus really purged the souls out of Hell when he died and before he rose. If Co doesn't end up in jail (or maybe when he's done being in jail) I could see him being a really awesome pastor/theologian someday. It's really fun to get all those religious "Miss. Yoshi questions" that a lot of the other staff really don't know how to answer. See, a minor in Bible really does pay off!

The afternoon, however, was not quite as good as my aide, Mr. B. decided to tell Ru that he was, "going to kill him," and then Mr. B. tried to call Ru out, like he was going to fight him. I was shocked. Thankfully Ru did not get up out of his seat (thank you Lord!) and then Mr. B. left immediately for his lunch break. I told the principal what happened, had Mr. B. apologize when he got back and talked with him about being the bigger man ... and we'll see where the dice land. Mr. B. may not get hired on as a permanent staff after that little incident. Sad, because it was really nice having two aides. But I do not want an aide that is going to threaten my kids. (Also not cool is that one of Mr. M.'s aides, Mr. T, made my boy Is cry during lunch for the second day in a row. Not cool. I've been talking to the school psychologists about it).

Josh had a good day today, despite getting four R. I. R.'s (remedial instruction reports). He got three of them in a row in the TAC office. Nice. =) But he and I are both in good spirits. And yay! I have Spring Break next week. The only really sad thing about it is that while I am looking forward to it with anticipation, my kids are looking forward to it with dread. They do NOT want to stay at home all day. As much as our school is a "shithole," it is apparently much better than being at home. Why? Because they are lonely at home, where no one cares about them. ::Sigh:: Hopefully none of the will O.D. over break or get into any serious trouble! Something to pray about. Well, I have written more than enough. How are you?

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