"want a piece of gum?"

from jamie, one of my four boys: octavius (i recently looked up his name - remembering it from somewhere - and it's a variation of octavius/octavian/augustus, 1st roman emperor, referenced in passing often in cicero), vernarderick, qualin, jamie. in the moments before the break ended, we shared the sounds of chewing, and the cheap rush of factory mint.

today i raided the english dept. resource room at my high school, on a hot tip from an ole miss student teaching english 1 at lafayette (whom, in my more ambitious and identity-protecting/forgetting moments, i've alternately dubbed "hot for teacher") . hft - we'll call her - had found a binder of supplemental vhs tapes and audio cds (the latter to be lovingly dipped into her $15 hot pink "ghetto blaster" [her title] boombox - hot off the rack from walmart) piled high in this neglected cove; and i went there hot on a similar pursuit. after about five minutes, i returned to my teacher corps compatriots with a stack of unsuprisingly unused texts: the originally coveted vhs's (no cds, however - never mind, i have no ghetto blaster), as well as three companion workbooks for Elements of Literature: with Readings in World Literature - "Practice for Mississippi English Subject Area Test," "Reading Skills and Strategies: Active Reader's Practice Book," and "Language Handbook Worksheets." again: all unused, all seemingly neglected. granted, at this point i don't know exactly what we'll do with them, but perhaps it'll save us from (1) a total lack of direction, (2) the tendancy to either talk too much or spend too much time having the kids read stories out loud, (3) having limited-focus lessons. hopefully - in our budding careers - we'll be able to maneuver around oblique pessimism in regards to these young learners (re: our veteran teacher - who - among many other things - told us today about how she so valiently took all the "smart kids," i.e "all the kids that would walk all over yours," i.e. she kept the ones she likes - referenced often in her complete lack of expectation for the children we have in our classroom) for a long enough time to give the theoretical fullness of these materials a chance. it's funny how publishing companies make all these materials, secure business contracts with districts/states (cough...cough... graft), and sell packaged curriculums with notoriously unused multimedia/interdisciplinart perspectives. kids are still sleeping through shakespeare, and the "with Readings in World Literature" clause lies in an unopened stack of nice ideas.

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two days in a row i've written a significant amount. perhaps the addiction will form. perhaps just bursts. a welcome release, regardless. it's been a while since i've given much of anything to the blog-audience (re: my colleges "planworld" forum, through which i had my columnistic hayday in the winter of '03), and it's nice to slip into this voice again. the rambler; the adventurer; the idler. word to your moms, sammy johnson.