Too, too much

I have so much to catch up on, I hardly know where to begin. I guess we'll start with school. Exciting and Exhausting. That's how I would describe the first two weeks. The kids are great, great, great. I love teaching. Even being department chair has gone well. Everyone in our department is terrific--always willing to help each other, share whatever they have, offer advice, support, it's great. But, at our school, we've been living in scheduling hell. Classes with waaaay too many kids, and a brand new teacher with four different classes to teach--like teaching English 1, 2, 3, and 4 every day. In teacher lingo we call that four preps and it's stressful and difficult. I have been assigned as a mentor to my brand-new-teacher neighbor and he had four preps. After seemingly endless hassles, finally, finally he has only three. I can't go in to it all, but I do feel good about trying to stand up for him and be his advocate and also for standing up for my students, who did not deserve to be crammed into a classroom. I don't want to be a whiner or a problem, but I do plan to fight for what I see as the best interests of my teachers and students. I'm can say, though, that I have absolutely no ambition to move up the administration ladder. Dept. head is enough (sometimes more than enough) for me. My greatest talent lies in teaching and that's what I want to do.

How about a little politics? Was Rudy great the other night or not? His comments on Obama voting "present" rather than yes or no on more than 100 issues as a state senator were priceless. I also loved this one: "Change is not a destination, and hope is not a strategy." By the way, if you're interested in politics, you should go to www.nationalreview.com--best political commentary (from a conservative point of view) available anywhere. Smart people--great analysis.

And wasn't Sarah Palin fantastic? Mayors, as opposed to community organizers, have actual responsibilities. (As do governors). I can't help it, I love a great strike and she was masterful. I know that the president doesn't actually have the power to fulfill all the promises these people make, but he (or she) can have a huge impact on national security and that's the number one issue for me. If we're attacked, suddenly healthcare and the economy become far less important. We need to secure our nation as well as we can, then worry about those other issues (at least in my humble opinion). I have definitely had problems with McCain in the past--I disagreed with him on campaign finance reform and immigration reform as two examples--but he really "gets" security. Obama does not. Sarah Palin is great on all the other conservative issues, and maybe she can persuade McCain to move a bit on his opposition to drilling in Alaska, and on his fairly open-borders stance on immigration. By the way, I have no opposition to the immigration of hard-working, law-abiding people. I just want a system where we know who is coming in--I'd really like to keep the terrorists OUT.

It's getting late, I'm way behind on grading, and I gotta run. More later in the week.