Free Stuff, VIBs & Book Reviews

OK, I might as well admit it–I love free stuff (but I hardly ever get free stuff unless you count the samples they give out in grocery stores). Pathetic, I know.

So, my friends, when I got an email from a very nice marketing assistant hawking a free copy of Peg Tyre’s book, the Trouble With Boys, if I would just read it and review it or discuss it on my blog, well a few things crossed my mind. (Yeah, I know, it’s those darn tootin’ things again.)

“Yippee! Free stuff for me!” was, of course, Thing Number 1 that crossed my mind.

That, however, was closely followed by Thing Number 2–“Jeepers, I bet that very nice marketing assistant (much less Ms. Tyre) has never, ever read my blog. Otherwise both shes probably wouldn’t appreciate this very seriously researched book on a very seriously important subject reviewed/discussed/mentioned by a not-so-serious journalism adviser.”

Now, if I’m being totally honest, there also was Thing Number 3. For a brief egocentric moment, I thought to myself, “Woo-ho, I must be a VIB--as in Very Important Blogger--for someone to offer me free stuff.”

Thing Number 3 lasted, oh, about a nanosecond when I figured out the nice little email was probably a mass emailing and the very nice marketing assistant was probably some computer in a backroom named Nicole. Kind of like Hal from 2001: A Space Odyssey, but nicer.

So for another fleeting moment, I thought I would just ignore the offer and go on about my quirky non-free stuff existence.

Still, it was free stuff after all (and I never get free stuff)… so speedy quick I responded, “Send it,” and for about a week, “The Trouble with Boys" went back and forth with me to work and started an entire listing in my head about how I could write volumes about “The Trouble With Richie.” But then I figured that probably wasn’t what computer Nicole had in mind when she said “review,” and so that is how “The Boys” accompanied me on my recent flight to Colorado to take care of family stuff (along with the 20 or so yearbook pages to edit).

Hmmm…Are you wondering which one won my time? Kind of a no-brainer there. “The Boys” won without even a run-off over reading those yearbook pages (which I’m sure thrills the crack fire out of my yearbook rep).

Now I really only intended to read just a few pages. Instead, I rather surprised myself and kept turning the pages. I’m more than half way through and highly recommend it. (And, I’m not just saying that because the book was free.)

Let me just share one anecdote from the book. Picture a second grade class. They are supposed to be working on a one page essay in their journals. One boy hides under his desk with a pencil tip in his ear. A classroom observer bends down and asked him what he’s doing…

He stared at her for a moment, then whispered, “Scratching my ear.”
Costello tried again. “Why are you under the desk?” she said keeping her voice low.
The boy tried to explain. “The teacher said we should write about anything,” he said, then fell silent.
“And?” prompted Costello.
“I don't know what to write.”

Let me just say I have big kids in high school who would curl up under a desk if they could fit there. Hails Bails, half the time I want to curl up under a desk, too.

But what this book does is make you think about all the things (yep, those things again) we do to kids--intentionally and unintentionally--and to boys specifically. And those things aren’t good things either. The problem with a book like this, though, is that it makes people tend to gloss over a very important point…

Good teachers are, well, good teachers. There I said it. We teach kids and we do it well. We view kids individually and adapt our lessons accordingly. That’s just what we do.

Now, aren’t you glad I got that free book? At least I didn’t have to curl up under my desk because I couldn’t think of something to blog about. And, as a nice added bonus, for a fleeting moment, I got to pretend to be a VIB.

Well, I’ve gotta go now and head off to the grocery store. You know, for that free stuff.

Shooting, Organization & Things Overheard

Well somehow we survived shooting more than 1,700 freshmen, sophomores and juniors.

Oh dear, I guess I should stop saying that. Let’s scratch that and start again.

Somehow we survived photographing more than 1,700 freshmen sophomores and juniors, but I think the Richie Hata’s Club grew exponentially in the process.

Despite spending hours on a nifty looking 3-page elaborate schedule that charted times and teachers outlining when they should bebop down to the auditorium with their students, the day pretty much was nothing more than unorganized chaos. All those teachers pretty much just took roll and then bebopped down to the auditorium when they felt like bebopping.

That all rather left me feeling like the guy in the song “Alice’s Restaurant” with his “twenty-seven 8-by-10 glossy pictures with circles and arrows and a paragraph on the back of each one” and no one to show them to. (I know. I know. I know. I should have learned my lesson from that whole Dante’s Circle of Hell incident.)

I might as well have tossed my nifty little schedule into the air, set my hair on fire and ran willy-nilly screaming out of the building. It took several trips to the ECD (Emergency Chocolate Drawer) and a rather hefty three raw sugar skinny latte to steel myself.

So much for organization.

Which, of course, at this point in my life, I’m beginning to think is way, way overrated. And which, of course, brings me to another dismal failure of mine–my desk.

I had planned to shoot a “before” picture of my desk which would clearly show its cleanliness and my new-found organizational skills in an attempt to silence the Naysaying Nellies. But sadly, by the time I got around to it, well, let’s just say I have to re-re-organize my desk just to get it back to its “before” greatness when I could actually see the brown formica.

I have this feeling that Challenge #1 of the “Richie’s Full Blown 5 -alarm Fun-Filled Educational Challenge” isn’t going to be so fun-filled especially since we’ve only completed Week #2.

Well, enough about me. This blog normally focuses on my kiddos. So now that school is back in session and my DIs (Darling Inspirations) have returned, let’s take a quick sneaky peak into the “Things Overheard & I Can’t Believe You Actually Said That” Category…

Things Overheard #1…
newspaper photo editor… “What did I do with my pants?”
me yelling from across the room… “Pants! What do you mean, ‘What did you do with your pants?’ There better be pants!”
newspaper photo editor… “Calm down… I’m wearing a grass skirt.”

As if that explained everything. As if.


Things Overheard #2…
yearbook staffer… “So we have to sell three full pages of ads? So that means a full page ad is a full page?”


Things Overheard #3…
photography student… “What’s Labor Day?”
me… “It’s a day to honor workers.”
photography student… “Oh, I thought it had to do with mothers…”
me… “Oh my…”


Things Overhead #4…
(The yearbook staff has been working diligently trying to fine tune their yearbook theme after I nixed their theme word, “Essence.”)
me… “Essence is too girly. Sounds too much like perfume.”
them… “How about ‘Substance’?”
me… “So now we’re going to hand out crack with the yearbooks?”
them… “How about ‘Epitome’?”
me…“Oh, so now we’re the epitome of stupidity?”


There were a few more suggestions, but quite frankly, they made my head explode. We finally settled on “The Fine Print,” and I think that will do just fine.

So now, I guess I better get back to that whole desk cleaning thing…but first, I think I better check out the ECD again.

Self-pity, Serendipity & Tootsie Rolls

Hideeho friends… So yes, I am a tad bit tardy in posting this week. I was out of town again attending to some family matters, but I am back now and aren’t y’all just thrilled to bits?

I confess that I have been just a bit worried about blogging with all my DIs (Darling Inspirations) out and about for the summer, but worry not, things (and by now you should know how I feel about things), well things just have a way of popping up.

For instance, briefly…OK, OK, OK, perhaps not briefly…it was more like a wallowing angst…I wallowed about, feeling sorry for myself and was rather out of sorts, when out of the blue (alrighty then, now we have two–count ’em TWO cliches, perhaps we should all revisit cliche finder and get it out of our system)…So back to the matter at hand…(OK, so make that cliche No. 3)…

Wallowing, angst, feeling sorry…when I received a random email from a former student of mine who served as news editor on the school newspaper and who just landed a job at the Dallas Morning News. Talk about serendipity (and don’t ya love that word?).

At any rate (does that count as #4?), her kind words immediately pulled me out of the “OMG how it sucks to be me because every day is like a bad hair day” funk. And, more importantly, she jogged some other memories I had forgotten about…memories like the tootsie roll chain which is like four to five times taller than she is and wider than I am.

And here’s the deal-eee-oh (cliche number five-o), that tootsie roll chain apparently happens to be serendipitous as well.

You see, Erika always loved tootsie rolls–eating mass quantities of them especially on deadline. She ate so many she started making a chain with the wrappers. That tootsie roll chain not only served as a stress meter of sorts, but also appeared to be rather cathartic as well. When she graduated from high school, she took the 20-foot-long chain with her.

Flash forward to her new job at the DMN…She noticed there were some ladies who were tootsie roll aficionados so she hauled her tootsie roll chain up there. Apparently after they got over the oddness of the chain, Erika reports the link actually made the tootsie roll ladies feel better.

“Now,” Erikia said, “they don’t feel so bad for eating so many.”

So you see, my friends, two seemingly innocuous things––a random email and gajillion long tootsie roll chain––had the power to spread joy and happiness. Now, I know all that probably doesn’t qualify for any sort of Pay it Forward hoopdedoo, but hey, let’s grab what we can––even if it’s only a tootsie roll.

Tag! You’re It!

OK, OK, OK I’m new at this and I’ve been tagged and I’m assuming that’s a good thing. Got tagged by my new buddy Clix over at Epic Adventures Are Often Uncomfortable. So if I mess this up, cut me some slack. Hmmm, I’m, supposed to post the rules so here you go…

The rules are:

- Link to the person that tagged you and post the rules on your blog.
- Share 7 random and or weird things about yourself.
- Tag 7 random people at the end of your post and include links to their blogs.
- Let each person know that they have been tagged by leaving a comment on their blog.

Seven weird or random things about me...

#1… I camped outside the Cotton Bowl in Dallas to see the Rolling Stones. (I’ve seen them three times.)
#2… I actually saw Led Zeppelin in the 70s when we were all quite a bit younger.
#3… I knew my husband of almost 25 years about two weeks before we got engaged. We got married six months later.
#4… I have a tiara in my classroom (which I wear from time to time), then there’s Stevie the Penguin (and no, Clix you may not add him to your collection). Then, of course, there’s the chicken I use as a pointer…
#5… At journalism competitions, I compulsively add up the number of awards we win and compare them against the number our competition wins. Twisted, I know.
#6… I’m half-Italian and half-Polish. My mom’s parents immigrated from Italy and my dad’s parents immigrated from Poland in the 1920s. I make a mean lasagna.
#7… I am cosmetology-impaired. Much to my daughters’ horror, I cannot fix hair neither theirs when they were little nor mine now. Never have been able to. Never really cared (about mine), but apparently I’m supposed to. Sigh.

OK, now here are my 7 random tags… I hope they all got “plays well with others” on their report cards and don’t mind playing… If they do mind, well, sorry… Shadowhelm’s Journal, Mr. Teacher, Mike, Matt-a-matical, Assorted Stuff, Joel at So You Want To Teach and HipTeacher