I've worked out every day for the past two weeks. It feels good. I look forward to it in the mornings.

I am so sick of all of the political commercials. There are too many dumb people with too much money that think they'll "do good" for Alabama. I've got news for them: they are being made fun of all over the web. They also need to read up on educational law and the bible.

Miss Karen Black read my tarot for me last week. It said that I was going to be great at my job and that I will like it. I really hope that it's right. I'm nervous and excited.

The school I'm teaching at had yet another tragedy last week. A girl's parents were throwing her a graduation party when some 20 year old idiot came in and shot 9 people. 1 person was killed; he was a student at Bryant High School. It just breaks my heart. I'm not sure if any of my kids were there or were injured, but I'm checking in this week. I was going to go in last week, but I figure the administration had enough going on. They didn't need me coming in there bothering them any. I'm wondering how much my students can take before it gets to the point where they want to go to other schools. It hurts my heart because I truly love that school. I can't imagine teaching anywhere else at this point.

I've got a lot of ideas. I won't be able to be in charge of anything during the first part of the fall semester (I'll still be considered a "long term sub") but in the spring I definitely want to have a poetry cafe once a month where students can stay after school and share their writings. I'll put some mood lighting up and have coffee and tea and cookies and we'll read and share. I think it'll be fun. It's something creative that the kids don't have right now, and I want these kids to have something to look forward to each month.

Also, I'm planning on expanding my Gothic literature unit to three weeks so that we can read more Poe and Faulkner. My 11th graders will read more Flannery and stuff by Barry Hannah, if I can find anything that isn't too vulgar, that is.

I've got this hairbrained idea to go backwards in the literature aspect. I mean start with the early 1900s and go back to the 1600s. I think it will be easier for them to relate to the later stuff, so they'll know how to pick apart a piece before we get to the harder stuff from the 1600s. I don't know. I'll have the next two months to decide.

I'm really enjoying my English class for this May term. It's called "Masterpiece Theatre" and we watch movies that are based on literature. It's really funny and awful how much liberty directors and writers take with these adaptations. Some basically just took the title of the work and didn't make the movie anything like the story. The best phrase I can think of for these films is "awesomely bad," like those Vh1 shows.

That's all for now. Hopefully I'll buy a scale this week and update my workout progression.

farewell