January update

The last time I wrote about my class I was rather stressed out by their regression.  Thankfully we've started the new year on a different note.  We not only changed the routine up but we also changed the layout of the room in order to accomodate a new center: the Wii.  Yes, we actually have a wii in our classroom.  I don't know if it was the fact that the students have come off of their "holiday high", they've adjusted to our attention being spread out, or they just really enjoy having the wii as a reward center.  Whatever the cause my students have seemed to come back to "normal". 

This doesn't mean that there aren't temper tantrums, whining, and days when it seems like all of my students push every button and get on my last nerve (we had one of those days today).  Overall their behaviors have improved.

Some prayer requests regarding the students:

- A new Spanish speaking student in the kindergarten class who is exhibiting challenging behaviors.  Not only is there a language barrier, but his dad had recently been deported.  He has a tendancy to run either out of the classroom or try to run out of the building.  On the plus side, he keeps us in shape! :)

- We haven't had the time/staff to work with J. on speech.  He still says "eat" from time to time, but he has become less clear and less motivated to attempt speaking.

- L.'s mom has been getting more and more out of control with her drinking.  She hasn't been arrested yet, but probably will be one day.  L. constantly comes late to school and continues to exhibit bursts of anger.  Thankfully we have had to restrain him for shorter periods of time before he cooperates with our directions.

- C. has been getting more and more angry/agressive and talking about hurting/killing others.  At the moment he isn't getting the help he so desperately needs and the school psychologist believes that if he continues going down this path that he'll either end up in jail or the psy ward.  Please pray that his dads will stop being in denial and get their son proper therapy.

I wish I had gotten a picture of "Chippy" before we captured him - oh well.  I especially wished I had had my camera when I walked into my bedroom and saw Meiska and him sitting next to each other.  Meiska has a personality which makes her want to befriend all types of animals.  I'm glad she doesn't live outdoors or she'd never survive!

In case you're wondering who Chippy is, he is a chipmunk who came to live with me for a few days.  I discovered him when a rustling sound woke me up in the middle of Tuesday night.  I usually lock my cats out of the bedroom while I'm sleeping, so at first I thought maybe Jekyll had somehow gotten into my room and was misbehaving again.  I keep a flashlight near my bed for such occasions.  When I shone it around the room however, what I saw made me sit straight up and nearly scream.  There was a chipmunk sitting on my laundry basket.  He quickly ran away to another corner of my bedroom.  Ray let the cats in to investigate.  Jekyll immediately smelled Chippy and kept him cornered under a nightstand.  Since it was after 3am we decided it would be best to just let the cats stand guard.  Believe me, I hardly got any sleep that night.

Ray spent the next day working on my apartment while Jekyll kept watch over Chippy and I went to work.  The next night I barely heard any sounds, but around 4am there ensued a game of "tag" between Jekyll and Chippy.  I didn't get up to see what was happening, but I kept having visions of finding a dead chipmunk in the morning.  The next night went similarly, but this time I was awake enough to see the game of tag.  Chippy was getting bold enough to jump on the bed (thankfully I wasn't in it).  I saw him leap from my garment rack, climb up my dresser and onto the printer.  Only I would have a chipmunk with ninja-like abilities.  Meiska was sitting next to the printer at the time so I thought Chippy might be captured right then and there, but the two of them just sat there like old pals.  Goodness.

Ray finally managed to capture Chippy late Friday night.  Chippy was on top of my garment rack and Ray was able to cover him with his hand until I got a tupperware container.  Chippy almost escaped except that I store the plastic that goes over your dry cleaning on top of the rack and in his attempt to escape managed to get tangled in that.  Ray put Chippy in the tupperware container and carried him outside.  At first I was concerned that Chippy would remember how to get back in, but we've made it through the weekend chipmunk-free :D.

My Birthday

My birthday passed a couple of weeks ago and there's really not a whole lot to say on the matter.  I spent New Year's Eve hanging out with friends, woke up late on my birthday, spent the day browsing at the mall, had dinner with Ray and his parents, and ended the night watching a movie with Ray.  It was a fairly good birthday, but the part that I especially appreciated was the cake.  It was the one request I gave Ray.  Lately his time has been consumed between working on a kitchen project in my apartment (pics and details will be posted after completion) and working with his friend on a major remodeling job.  Needless to say I have no idea when he had time to make me a cake.  And not just any cake - a double layer chocolate cake with a peanut butter filling, chocolate frosting with peanut butter drizzle, and a border of mini reeces peanut butter cups.

I should have taken a picture before he cut it.  This is what it looked like after the majority had been eaten and some of the frosting had somehow melted, but hopefully you get the idea.  It was delicious!

Where is your Faith?

I'm not the most observant person in the world.  In case I had forgotten that point I ran over a stake today....it could have been worse, but yeah, some days I really feel like a dumb blond.  Charlie, my mechanic, loves me though :D.  I love that Ray not only forgives me for ruining my tire, but also pays for my mistake. 

Anyway....all that to say that when I got into my car on Christmas Eve and thought things looked messier than usual and that my cd case wasn't where I thought I had left it, I really didn't think too much about it.  I figured that I needed to clean the car out and that the cd case had somehow found its way under the car seat.  It also didn't register that maybe I wasn't the one who had messed up the car light or that maybe the aux chord to Ray's phone hadn't been misplaced.  That is, until Ray asked me if I had taken my tennis rackets out of the trunk.  I had been meaning to do that for weeks, but never got around to it.  You see, he found my tennis rackets in some bushes along the side of the road and the aux chord lying in the street not far away.  Someone had been through my car the night before.  They must have gotten spooked, or realized that I didn't have anything worth taking home.  I never did find my cd case.  Fortunately they only took the case containing cd's I don't listen to on a regular basis.  Those cd's they left.

Somehow I got complacent about my surroundings.  On Staten Island I always locked my car, even if it was in the driveway.  My neighbor's cars were constantly being broken into and there were several house robberies along my block.   I grew up with the fear of being robbed.  Then I moved to Rockland.  At first I was vigilant about keeping my doors locked - I even had a club on my car at one point.  Slowly I let my guard down.  I began leaving my doors unlocked at my house and some of my friends' homes.  Even though I currently have to park on the street, I still kept my doors unlocked unless there was something of value in the car. 

After I realized that keeping my doors unlocked was no longer safe, I began to feel very vulnerable and scared.  Even though my doors were locked, I still feared that my car would be broken into.  When I told Ray about this he asked me where my faith was.  I thought this was an unncessarily cruel question at first.  Did he think I had lost my faith in God simply because I was afraid?  Not really, but fear is an issue that I have been battling with all of my life.  Being afraid is a natural and normal reaction - especially after an incident occurs.  Letting fear control you and keep you from living your life is unhealthy though. 

This year I started a journal of Bible verses that stood out to me.  There were two verses in particular that stood out this week.  The first was Psalm 91:14-15 which states " ' Because he loves me', says the Lord, 'I will protect him, for he acknowledges my name.  He will call upon me, and I will answer him; I will be with him in trouble, I will deliver him and honor him.  With long life will I satisfy him and show him my salvation.' " A couple of days later I read this verse: "God did not give us a spirit that makes us afraid, but a spirit of power and love and self-control."   2 Timothy 1:7  (NIV)  In the New King James Version, the word "self control" is translated as "sound mind".  To be of a sound mind means that a person is free from mental disease, which includes anxiety disorders - something I'm very familiar with.   God doesn't promise that bad things won't happen to us.  Actually, in the book of James it tells us to not be suprised when trials and storms come our way.  God does promise to go through those trials and storms with us and that because He is with us, we don't have to live in fear.

I'm not sure what 2012 has in store for me, nevertheless my desire is to not live out the year in fear, but in complete faith that God is with me every step of the way.

I hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas! This year I went to Staten Island on Christmas Eve.  It was nice to spend the evening with my parents and grandmother.  Christmas Day was spent at Ray's parents' house with them, his two sisters, and brother-in-law.  The food was good and the atmosphere relaxing.  I can't complain, but I do have to confess that I came away disappointed.

Every year my mom asks me what I want for Christmas.  I try to keep things to a minimum and only ask for "necessities".  These are things which I could really use, but find it hard to find money in the budget for them.  I figure if she's asking for a list, then I'll get what I want on the list, right?  It never happens and this year was no exception.  In case you're wondering, my list included a space heater, a pair of slippers, a bathmat, and dunkin donuts coffee.  The coffee really wasn't necessary, but I figured I'd include a nice treat on there.  Out of that list I received four bags of dunkin donuts coffee.  I received other gifts too, but I was really looking forward to getting new slippers since my last ones got completely ruined and I've been supplementing by wearing two pairs of socks when I'm home.  The space heater would have been nice because I can only heat either the living room or the bedroom at one time.  Although it's doubtful that my landlady appreciates me using a space heater at all (in my opinion the heat should be more than 62 in my apartment, just saying), so maybe getting a second space heater would have created more tension between us.

It didn't help that for a week before Christmas the other teachers/t.a.'s were all talking about the elaborate presents they "needed" to get in order to be happy and that on Christmas day all I saw were pictures of people getting really nice gifts and texts from people about the great presents they received.  However, that's really not what Christmas is all about in the first place.  It's really about celebrating Christ's birth and being together with family.  Besides, after listening to a friend's story about how she cried Christmas Eve because she had too many family get togethers to go to and her family was upset with her, I realized that one of my many blessings was to have two families that don't fight over where I should be and that I could relax and be myself with both of them.  After I got home and assembled all of my presents I also realized that I received more gifts than I knew what to do with.

Today I went to Target and used my gift cards.  I got the bathmat I had been looking at (on sale!).  I didn't find any slippers that I wanted, but I was able to get two pairs of really nice warm winter boots on clearance.  As for the space heater, I still don't have any money in the budget for the one I'd like, but yesterday my heat stayed on at 70 the entire day.    Sometimes you just have to wait for what you'd like, and sometimes we get what we need - just not the way we expected it.

Transitions

This month at school has been hard so far and it's not promising to get any easier.  Of course teaching in December is normally stressful due to the "holiday high" that comes on right after Thanksgiving break, but this year is different. 

Last year my room was the only self contained classroom.  This year there were so many kindergarten kids with classifications (10 boys) that the district created a seperate self contained class for them.  The original intent was for both of the classes to collaborate, however that failed to happen because the kindergarten teacher tried to handle things on her own.  Over the last few months we've watched as her students became more and more uncontrollable despite our attempts to intervene.  A little over a week ago we had a turning point.  One of the kindergarten boys, L., ran up to the teacher, pushed her down, pulled her hair, and tried to choke her.  She broke down in sobs - the entire class watching the whole incident.  She asked for help. 

This was both good and bad.  We have completely rearranged our morning routine to accomodate the kindergarten class.  I spent two days last week restraining L. when he got out of hand.  L. has severe anger issues due to living with an alcoholic mother and a drug dealing father.  Over the course of the last week we have seen tremendous improvement in his behavior.  Unfortunately the students I generally work with have regressed because of the routine change and the fact that our attention isn't solely focused on them.  J., who had been saying "eat" and improving in his behavior has stopped this verbal communication and has been attacking us assistants as well as the other students by biting and scratching us.  The other students have been very whiny and clingy.  To top it off most of the kids are sick with some form of a cold.

We're all hoping that this stage will end when we return from Christmas break.  Until then, if you think of it, please pray that we'll have the energy, endurance, and patience to deal with these new issues.

One more thing,
it'll only take a moment;
Hold on, one minute
just let me do one more thing.

One more thing turns into two
then three
now four.
How many more
before I sit and rest;
release my concerns to you,
quiet my mind,
hear You speak to me?

You wait patiently
watching me run to and fro.
Longing for me to stop,
turn to You
sit in Your presence.