royally screwed the pooch

so... i've finally done it... screwed up badly enough at work to be on the "we're watching you" list. it was bound to happen really; i've never been one to follow the rules. i usually just fly low enough under the radar that no one notices me. what i did was basically break one of the first rules they teach you in teaching school... don't ever leave your kids alone. every teacher breaks this rule. i don't know any who don't. run out to the bathroom for a minute... pick up copies down the hall... nothing ever comes of it. until friday. left the kids alone for 1 minute and all chaotic hell broke loose. seriously. harrassment and bullying... a boy even pushed a girl. i mean, are you kidding? this is high school. not nursery.
long story short, the administrators have their eyes on me now. don't really trust me. are requiring me to keep the blinds over the window to the hallway open so they can look in whenever they want to.

in other words... i'm looking for a new career. anyone have any ideas? i know not many people read this. but if someone stumbles across it, i'm open to suggestions (of the pg rated kind.)

i'm skilled at writing, math, art, and procrastinating.
thanks

it's interesting to me to see what people choose to write about in their blogs. i have a few that i check on daily... people write about everything from what's going on at their jobs, in their pregnant tummies, with their favorite sports teams, inside the deepest workings of their souls ... it's amazing. my problem is that i don't really know what i want my blog to be about. it has no personality. no theme. i feel like maybe it's just a place where i come to dump the heart-breaking realities i don't want to bring my friends down with. that doesn't seem like much of a reason to have a blog. perhaps i'll make a commitment to myself in this blog. every so often, i will go ahead and share something wonderful.
today i will share one of the most FUN things i have done in years: SNOW TUBING!
none of the pictures i have really accurately shows what the track looks like, but i'll attach a few just to give an idea. this is a picture of 4 people linked up in their tubes sliding down the tracks. fun, right?

here's another shot of one person heading down. you can kind of see what the tracks look like. also, if you ask them to at the top, they'll spin you in an overly-nauseating kind of way while you rush down the track (it's about as long as a football field). sweet, right? i'm not the screaming type, and i shrieked my head off all the way down while twisting like a top. my stomach is gurgling at the memory.

anyway... it's not quite as fun as snowboarding is (seriously... that's more like flying) but it's great fun, especially with whole families. if you try it drunk, don't ask to be spun. i think it's pretty self-explanatory as to why.

fyi, these pics were taken at keystone

i refuse to change

i have discovered that i'm really quite stubborn. all of me is (anyone in my family could verify that), but my heart is, too. first off, i refuse to stop loving someone once i feel love for them. it doesn't matter how much i may grow to despise their personalities later-not how much a person may hurt me and chisel away at my happiness. once there is love, it sticks. that's all there is to it.
but there is another part of me that is stubborn in the strangest way. i refuse to change how i remember people in my head. once i get a mental image, well... it's tough to make it go away. take yesterday. i called my parents on my mom's mobile phone. they were at the nursing home visiting my paternal grandmother. she is very sick with alzeimers and, as i remember, the last time i wrote about her, time had taken away the yiddish she learned as a child. since then, sadly, time has taken away most of her words and her faculties. she now eats mostly liquids because there is a possibility she may forget to properly chew and choke herself. often, she just repeats one sound over and over again until it has lost all meaning, if it ever had one. each time i see her or talk to her, i am surprised, because that is not the woman i know-not the one i remember, anyway. each time they put me on the phone with her (i can hear them in the background saying "put that to your ear" so she knows what to do) i am crushed down to the very insides of my soul until i hang up and then the memory reverts back to the original. i do not see this broken woman whose deteriorating body is so much more healthy than the mind. i see a porcelain-faced woman of amazing intelligence holding her chin high in quiet dignity. i see her dancing with my grandfather at a formal party, her silver hair pulled into neat waves framing her face. i don't know who this woman is that doesn't recognize my voice or my face. the one who mistakes my father for her husband. the one who forgets she can't walk and tries to pull herself out of her wheelchair. who is this woman? i refuse to change my memory of her. i just can't do it. maybe it's selfish, or stubborn... or maybe i'm doing her a justice. maybe i'm just doing myself a justice.