Late Night Musings...

Got home late tonight...had class.  The last one until January~YAY!  We all met at the Rio in Highlands Ranch...talking shop and having some drinks.  A great way to end the semester.  We started talking about our families...kids, husbands, years of marriage, etc.  I was struck by how little we actually knew one another, even though we meet for three hours every Monday night.  This made me think about others that I cross paths with everyday.  We are so hurried, engaged, absorbed by our jobs, our chores, and other 'important' stuff.  What is it that really matters to us.  I'm sure it is different for each of us...but I wonder if we know.  I mean really know what it is that we care most about.  You have heard, I'm sure, that if you really want to know what is important to you, take a look at your calendar.  Where are you spending your time?  Who are you spending it with? 


As the holiday season is upon us, challenge yourself to take a few moments to reflect on what matters.  Really matters.  What fills your calendar?  Reach out to someone.  Take time to really get to know someone.  Relish the small, seemingly insignificant things...

You won't be sorry! (No wine tonight...but the margaritas were fabulous)

~Cab Lover

The Barometric Beast

For years I have suspected that there was a correlation between student behavior and the changing barometric pressure.  It is, in fact, THE water cooler topic in any teacher's lounge.  I first thought that the erratic behavior that accompanied the first snow of the season was just pure childhood joy.  But, alas, that is just not the case.  I know. I researched it...and yes, there IS research out there to prove what teachers have known for, I'm guessing, hundreds of years.  Children's behavior and barometric pressure are (most often, negatively) related!!!  

If you are skeptical, check it out for yourself...Google the study:  Falling Barometer~Falling Behavior (ERIC database record #EJ230170). I know there are those of you out there who will say that you can find any study to prove (or disprove) any theory, and I agree.  So if you remain unconvinced...read on!

If you have ever been in an elementary school when the barometer begins to dance, you can feel, literally, something in the air!  A humming even, as thick fog begins to roll down the hallways and creep under the doors.  And then it happens.  CHAOS!  Children are bouncing off the walls, running amok through the corridors, throwing food...

Ok, so I'm embellishing a bit.  But not much.  Let me give you an example of what REALLY happens to children when the barometer rears it's ugly head.

Just the other day, I think it was Thursday, the forecast called for a nice, warm, sunny day.  Nope.  It was cold, the bone chilling kind, and windy...and I knew.  It was going to be one of those days.

I have the unique opportunity to work one-on-one with children.  During this precious 30 minutes we work hard...really hard.  The pace if fast, and the thinking intense.  The four children I have been with (30 minutes a day, 5 days a week) since September have made huge gains...amazing progress.  Until last Thursday, when the barometer began to fall...like a brick...on my head!

Little Joey and I were reading a book...studying words like cells under a microscope.  These little words were the same little words he knew yesterday.  The very SAME words!  But today, when we began to read, oddly, the book was in a foreign language.  Joey stared at the text, then at me, then at the text.  I was puzzled and inquired...what is it? To which he replied, "I have never read this book before!"  Befuddled, I responded, "of course you have...just yesterday...remember.  We even wrote about it."

Little Joey just stared back at me, blankly.  "Let's try again...you know these words.  Remember? Here, let me help you start...'the firefighters heard the alarm'.  Glassy eyes peered back at me.  Joey tilted his head and his eyes nearly bore a hole in my forehead.  I was almost scared.  He was looking at me as though I were a cyclops, green, with one huge eye in the middle of my forehead.  Yep...it was going to be one of those days.

Here is where I had to make a decision.  Do I fight the barometric beast and hope to come out alive?  And what about Little Joey?  Do I dare offer him up to the pressure demon?  To what end?  No.  Not today.  I cut my loses (and Joey's) and we curled up in the tattered football bean bag chair and I read to him for twenty minutes.  A precious twenty minutes.

Today, we beat the beast.  Joey and I walk away unscathed (mostly). 

A two Cab night! (Kendal Jackson SECO Higlands 2006)

~Cab Lover