Friday, December 31, 2010

Good bye to 2010

It's officially the last day of 2010, albeit very early on that day. I can't say I'm going to miss this year very much. While no major catastrophe happened, in all this just wasn't my year. I didn't knit very much, although I bought enough yarn to knit every day for years, all of which just got added to my collection. (Remember, I'm not calling it a stash anymore.) Money was tight, but not really tight. It's a struggle saving nearly a thousand dollars a month just to cover my "summers off" (read unpaid planning time for those two months, in reality). I still don't understand why my district won't go to a 12-month cycle, instead of a 10-month one.

My health was lousy this year. February saw the start of my knee problems, which continue to this day. I got only one nasty case of whatever was decimating my class, although they went through 3 cycles of it. And of course, just before Thanksgiving, I fell in my classroom, badly spraining my left foot, which put me in bed during the week off for Thanksgiving.  Then, I fell going down the stairs at my apartment on Christmas day, carrying packages to my car. My own fault, couldn't see where I was going, and missed a step. I prided myself on not damaging a single package, and not landing on my left knee or foot. However, I spent a miserable Christmas night, worried that I'd sprained or broken my right foot. I wrapped it firmly in an ace bandage, and had to sleep with my right leg bent at the knee, with my foot flat on the bed (not a good position for sleeping, I can now verify), but come morning, it was much better, and it hasn't caused me any trouble since. The only reminder of it are the scabs on my right foot, where I scraped all the skin off it in the fall.  Not pretty, but not particularly painfull.

I didn't accomplish as much as I wanted or needed to this year. I seriously need to get my life more organized. My apartment is overflowing in books, knitting magazines, yarn, and school-related items. I need more closet space for my clothing. I need more cupboard space for my kitchen items.  I need to get everything organized and put away in its place. (Once I figure out what those places are.) I think I actually need to find a new place to live. One with more room, on the ground floor.  The thought of packing up, though, makes me nauseous. I think I'm going to channel a little Scarlett O'Hara and just think about that tomorrow, though.

Politically, this wasn't the year I'd hoped it would be. Obama accomplished a lot, but not enough, and he certainly hasn't found his defining idea yet. He's too concerned with bipartisanship, and not concerned enough with getting his goals accomplished. And the coming year isn't going to be any easier. Harder, in fact, with the "Just Say No" Republican party taking over the House.  His compromises make the nay-sayers look better. It's time he stood his ground, and let the Republican party be seen for what it is, these days.  All that screaming about the deficit, and how it was killing America, and what do the Republicans demand? Tax cuts for millionaires. Tax cuts for the wealthy inheritors of million-dollar estates.  Which of course added billions to the deficit. But you don't hear any Republicans talking about that, now.  Gingrich did this "just say no" bit back in the 80s. Shut down the government, even. But his "Contract with America" didn't turn out well for him, since Clinton ended up looking much better, and the Republicans looking very bad, indeed.  Obama should stand his ground, and let the Republicans show the American public exactly what they're after.  Anybody paying attention to what's coming out of the Republican leaders knows that America isn't synched up to it. And most of us realize that, unfortunately, raising taxes is going to be necessary to save ourselves from ourselves.

California, thankfully, elected the right governor, although I don't envy Jerry the state our state is in. We honestly need to scrap the state constitution and write a new one. And if we have any sense, we'll omit that part that says anyone at all can put a measure on the state ballot that casts certain revenues or expenditures in stone, and removes the Assembly's ability to manipulate funding to match need. Or that tries to amend the state constitution to discriminate against one group of citizens.  The initiative process has made governing California nearly impossible, between tying up funds, raising voting numbers for passing any sort of revenue-generating process, and spending millions on lawsuits fighting initiatives that are flat out wrong. (And no, it isn't just the latest gay-bashing initiative that we've paid out for. There was that lovely little initiative not too many years ago that tried to turn priests, pastors, teachers, etc, into immigration agents. Imagine anyone telling me I have to turn in the names of my students to immigration, if I'm not sure their parents are here legally. Not in this lifetime! That was one law that I fully intended not to obey. Fortunately, the courts ruled it illegal for a variety of reasons, so I didn't get to go to jail for civil disobedience.)  California schools can't take any more budget cuts, folks. We need a new, sane, state constitution.

So, all in all, this wasn't a year I'm going to look back fondly on. It wasn't terrible, but it wasn't good, either.  I don't do resolutions, and I'm not betting on anything, either. But, I am hoping that 2011 is a better year. We need one.

Sunday, December 12, 2010

The Holidays

I am officially done with Christmas shopping. I still have wrapping to do, and in my niece's present's case, some cutting and tying (yes, I opted for the hand-tied fleece throw), but I don't have to leave home to do any of those things. I was able to order the Lego kit my sister-in-law wanted online, and it should be arriving this week. But my nephew isn't getting cooking lessons. His mom called me at 6:30 Thursday morning, hoping I hadn't gotten the lessons confirmed (I hadn't), because her son was begging for a particular Lego kit, which they hadn't gotten for him. I tired to order that online, as well, but it was backordered, and wouldn't ship for 30 days. And I didn't want to put a picture of it in a box, along with a note saying it was coming soon. So, I called the nearest Lego store, and bought one over the phone, to pick up. This is how much I love my nephew ~ the Lego store is inside the Ontario Mills Mall, a nightmare mall, to me. It's got 8 entrances, and it's sort of circular, but with random angles, and there are stores along the outside wall, and stores forming an inside circle. The first time I ever set foot inside this mall was with a group of friends who thought it would be fun. Heh. We got so completely lost we had to get security to help us find our way out of the mall and back to our car.  I'm so not a mall kind of person.

So, I called my sister-in-law and told her she would have to go with me to get her son's desired gift. She's as much into Legos as he is, and I knew she'd know exactly where the store was, and what entrance to use, etc. And she did. We were in and out in no time!

I have tutoring two days this coming week, and my kids and I are performing Thursday night at the school's Christmas program. (It was the upper grades' turn to do the Christmas program) We're singing three songs, no religious ones, just fun ones. "Nothing Says Christmas Like a Pair of Socks", "We Need a Little Christmas", and "Deck the Halls". My kids really wanted the Deck the Halls song for some reason. Turns out some of my kids have decided that they really, really like We Need A Little Christmas, though. I got to hear them humming it all day on Friday while they worked on other things.

So, I've got 3 days of practice, two days of tutoring, two performances (one at night for parents, one on Friday morning for the school), one party, and then, at last, two weeks off! I still have Christmas cards to write for my colleagues, and two presents to wrap up for two of the teachers I'm really close to before the end of this week, but I'm putting off any wrapping, cutting, or tying for the family until this week is over. My students, like all students, are totally wired by now, and so ready to be on vacation. It's a struggle to get them to sit still even for 5 minutes. While this is understandable, and cute, even, it still makes this last week a very stressful one, especially with the added pressure of performing in the Christmas show. I'll be off early on Friday (it's a minimum day for both students and staff), and right now I'm planning on coming straight home and going to bed.

In other news, I had to take an early afternoon at work right after Thanksgiving to get down to my local courthouse to apologize for failing to show up for Jury duty. With the sprained ankle and all, I completely forgot to call and postpone it, and further forgot that I was supposed to report bright an early the Monday after Thanksgiving. I was on my way to the car at 4:30 Monday when it hit me that I'd just blown it off. They take jury duty very seriously here, and when you don't show up, they will often come out and arrest you for failure to appear. (We had a few years where it was hard to make up a jury because of a lack of jurors, so they got really deadly serious about it.) They also don't accept most excuses for getting out of it anymore, either. Self-employed? Tough. Going to graduate school? Tough. Have small children at home? Tough. I think the only folks who get excused are military, police, and lawyers. The rest of us have to serve.  And I don't really mind it that much, to be honest. (Although I do hate the fact that I can't take my knitting into the jury waiting room. Like I'd mess up my needles and yarn to stab someone with one of the needles!) Anyway, I got down to the courthouse, and they were very understanding. They rescheduled me for early April, during my spring break, and even gave me the paperwork to get a refund on the parking fee I'd paid to get into the courthouse.  I guess it didn't hurt that I was very apologetic and willing to serve.

The only thing not going well for me right now is my sprained ankle. It should be fine by now, but it isn't. It still swells up from time to time, and it goes from pretty much pain free to nearly cripplingly painful in 2 seconds flat. I guess I'm going to have to go see my doctor about it.

I actually had some pictures to post with this blog, but for some reason, when I click the Insert Picture icon I get a URL not found message, and I can't figure out how to get around that. Oh, well. That's Blogger for you.