a sad fact I read in a note

Happy Wednesday.

I'm sitting here at the computer, eating a tuperware full of left- over mashed potatoes, trying hard not to fall asleep. Whew, what a day it has been, folks! I'm so tired, I fell asleep IN CLASS today while giving a little intro to drama/play format. Yup, completely true, I went blank, fell asleep and had a lovely dream about coming home and eating left-over mashed potatoes. All with my eyes open.

Enough about me being so tired.

As far as writing or posting goes, it seems I have come to complete lull in creative juices and energy. Instead, all of that juice and energy is being put toward other things (mainly the headache we call student teaching). I really haven't forgotten about my own little birth-child, "A Wife's Tale," truly, I think about it each and every day.

Slowly, all that I once used as a driving force for my blog is being magnetically pulled in the absolute polar opposite direction. This saddens me for two reasons: 1) As a self-declared geek, I enjoy re-reading my blogs frequently and laughing at my own attempts at humor and 2) I enjoy click-clicking away at my food-stained, dusty keyboard and spewing out random bits of life. It's like, all of a sudden, I have absolutely nothing to say and no where to pull any 'clever' quams. And despite the business of my life, still, nothing comes to mind to post.

But, let me compare my above situation with that of one of my 8th graders.

The "thing" to do in the 8th grade is write notes back and forth to friends. It was the "thing" when I was in 8th grade and I'm proud (or not) to say it is still the "thing." But what's funny about this generation of 8th graders is that it's not really what's inside the letter that counts but what sort of pretty design covers the outside. Flowers, polka-dots and lines, stick figures, hearts, etc., etc., etc. Girls who spend most of their free time writing notes spend most of it on their covers.

Today I had an interesting experience with one of these notes. A certain 8th grade group of girl-friends regularly pass notes back and forth numerous times throughout the day. I happened to catch one girl writing one of these novel-length letters as we were reading the play. I took this as a perfect opportunity to snatch that letter away (I know, mean Mrs. Hubert) and "confiscate" the evidence. (They aren't supposed to be writing letters during class).

After class was over, I snuck a tiny peek at the offending letter and, boy, did I sure get the shock of my life! Call it snooping, call it an invasion of privacy, but in a way, I'm glad I read what I did. It made me more aware of my students' dealings...And their messed up, screwy, thoughtless ideas they have about life.

I won't go into specifics here, but let me wrap this lovely little post up by explaining that my 8th grade students have much more, much, much, much more going on in their lives than I do...or probably ever will.

Here's hoping that tomorrow I might actually have something interesting to write about.

Love you all.