The Kansas City Batas

Archive for August, 2008

I know I said that I would write again last night, but I fell asleep. It was a long day. After getting up from my parents' couch, I went to bed and I don't remember anything else. Of course, this meant I woke up at 5:30 a.m. A nap this afternoon mad that alright. Now I am in our van with Lani driving us back to Kansas City.

Anyway, I wanted to write about what we did yesterday. After Lani & Mom went to Kara's Jazzercise class (she teaches it) we all went to Bondurant, IA and a place called Geisler Farms. It was mentioned in the DM Register's Datebook section few days ago. They have constructed a maze in their maize (that's corn for you English-only crowd). If I remember when we get home at around 9 p.m., I will try to post some links to it. It was quite a good time. We were able to finish it in about 35-40 minutes. There were some complicated spots. They also provided a map which you were supposed to get punch at 10 different locations throughout the maze. Definitely go in with a plan.

Anyway, it was a great time, and I am happy my mom had found out about it. Again, I will try to post some pics and links later. I am getting bored doing this by phone.

Well, it has been a little while since the last one. School started up and I have been pretty tired. This is with Parker and Carmen having two weeks off from gymnastics.

I have been much happier this year. In fact, the whole staff and most of the students do, also. The change in administration seems to have helped. Unfortunately, there is enough residual effects from some of the policies they were trying to administer over the summer to effectively screw up all of the schedules. It has been a real pain trying to get all of our kids where they belong.

I did get a call from the jazz singer, Lisa Henry. She works with the Thelonius Monk Institute and they are going to bring a group to play. She says it often consists of her, Bobby Watson, and T.S. Monk, but it does vary some depending on schedules. They also want to do a continuous after-school program with my kids and bring in Stan Kessler, a trumpet player here in KC. I am looking forward to this.

This was entitled First of Two. The second will come later tonight. I need a break form my computer before I write it. I will have some steak and come back to this.

Up next: a cornfield maze…

Well, it is time to go back to school tomorrow. I guess I have been back for a week, but tomorrow will include students. I am looking forward to it. I can honestly say that I had no desire to go back to school at the end of last school year. The new administration makes things really wonderful.

If I have time (which may or may not happen with the altered schedules tomorrow) I may try to write how things go. There is one concern. The HS has an altered schedule, but we haven’t received it yet. Hmmm. Hopefully, this isn’t indicative of what is to come.

We did have an orientation on Thursday evening. They scheduled both the HS & MS at the same time. I hope they learn to talk more. Anyway, there was a large turn-out for the MS where I was. I think I picked up some extra students. It helped that NO ONE else showed up for their classes/activities. No P.E., no other electives, no one.

Well, time to get the kids ready for bed so I have a shot at getting there to be ready for tomorrow.

There is always that one teacher that can't keep their pie-hole shut during meetings. We have one that has to be rude about it. Anytime someone says ANYTHING, she must attack it beginning with "In my opinion…" Usually her opinion is wrong.

A perfect example is this morning. She invited the head of the grant writing department to speak to us about trying to obtain grants. He gave an introduction and she immediately raised her hand. She then laid into him about how she didn't get a couple of grants this last year and why she couldn't get the responses she wanted from the grant department. It was great when the guy said that most people just don't get grants so suck it up (I added that last part).

I then proceeded to raise my hand and ask him what my next step was since I was awarded two grants this summer. That kind of took the wind out of her sails for a minute. Just for a minute, though. She has plenty of wind in reserve. Plenty. I better go now since this probably looks suspicious. I am doing it from my phone.

I may do another this afternoon depending on how it goes.

I am sitting here in my school's library at 9 a.m. on my first day back. I am already bored out of my mind. This does not bode well.