Monday, January 26, 2009

The Good Stuff

I am, with her approval, borrowing a great idea Tiny Montgomery had a few weeks ago. Each day, I will let my 4 readers know about something good, great, or wonderful that I experienced. I'll call it The Good Stuff, which is what I also call the tube of Gold Bond Ultimate Lotion I keep at school. Even my kids call it The Good Stuff. "Mrs. Rabbitt, can I have some of The Good Stuff?"
Here's why I'm doing this:
1. I teach 7th grade in a low-income district. I am bombarded daily with petty bullshit, especially by girls who are always antagonizing and being snarky to one another. It's never been this bad before. I am so freakin' sick of hearing what soandso said to soandso on the bus and then some slutty 8th grade boy is always bothering them and blahblahblah is two-faced and so on.

2. This world is pretty sucky, and we need more goodness.

3. I'm tired of hearing people talk about how stupid or terrible everyone else is.

4. My mother trained my brother and I to notice the small beautiful things in nature. It's hard to pass this onto to low-income, bitchy 7th graders, but I try.

5. My NYE resolution was to stay un-snarky and not to complain about things/people I can't control. It went well until I went back to school, but I put up a good fight. I have only had 2 or 3 incidents when I was given a "Get Out of NYE Resolution Free Card".

Here's my first nice thing, seen at 6:50 am today.
So, it snowed, beautifully, yesterday. The sky this morning was that typical pinkish city sky, covered in thick clouds. As I discovered the snow on my car was brushable and not an issue, I heard crows cawing. The noise got louder and louder, and I finally looked up. Above me was a murder of at least 50 crows, flying east. It was so peaceful and solitary and I felt like the only person in the city watching these black dots flap overhead. Ah... a haiku moment...

Also, my coworkers and I had a good chuckle during team meeting this morning. Other teachers brought in bagels and coffee, so I had a nice snack in the library during my free time.

My 6th hour class read silently during DEAR so I rewarded them with wasabi and soy sauce flavored almonds. Most of them had never had wasabi, and it was fun to watch them experience it! For the record, the only girl who didn't like it usually makes a big show out of everything, so her opinion is invalid.

Happy Lunar New Year to my Asian and Asian-phile friends, both 15 months old and above :)
I am an ox, so hopefully good things will happen. See if this description doesn't just scream ALLISON!


Oops...according to Wikipedia, I'm a Rat. But, according to my Chinese friend, I was born on the cusp, so could have attributes of both.

2 comments:

Elizabeth Frick said...

Hey, thanks for the new year's wishes! I'll be sure to pass them along to this mysterious 15-month-old of which you speak...
I love this idea of the good stuff. And I got chills when reading about the crows you saw. Too cool.
Here's hoping for a snow day! That would definitely make the good stuff list, right???

Anonymous said...

That district you teach in wouldn't be as tough and low income if some of my wish-we-lived-south-of-Forsyth neighbors would step up to the plate.

I didn't make any anti-snarking resolutions. So there.