Making Sense Out of Nonsense

It's funny when you think you have carte blanche to whine about how crappy your life is that you find out that someone else has more probs than you do. My friend who has copious health problems was back in the hospital this weekend. Gee. I am not above not putting it into perspective, but you sure have to feel sorry for the guy. My prayers go out. keep me in yours.

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Don't exactly remember that last communication. I think you know that I moved back to LA. What a great day to be rid of that chapter. I am in a Technology Magnet HS teaching English. We start next week. I could be more excited if we had textbooks or if my room was ready...no Novell login, no Bb login, etc., small things, but big things to me that will keep me working to catch up. I went bact to TH last week to get the last of my things out (Katrina-sogged papers that I didn't want to take to Baton rouge, almost full circle), clean it out, etc. We had training from Memorial Day (Tu) thru July 11, so I've only had about 2 weeks off. And of course, that does not include the "manadatory" teacher orientation, which we were not paid for. Yippee. I should settle down in about Nov. ... the weather is laser-burning hot here. It's been over 90 degrees since we moved here on May 19. My mom is doing well. She doesn't want to go out in the heat yet. Hope all is well w...

Blackboard Academic Suite If you have access to my class, you can read this.

I'm in the process of having my Katrina chairs reupholsetered. You might think that over a year after Katrina that it would be a new point, a great cleansing time, or a way to feel good about movving on. I am not sure that we do move on. We don't have a choice, so we pick ourselves up and get back to living. At the same time, we know there is a void, that our very innocence about our safety has been struck to the quick. When yours and the neighborhoods of nearly a million other people have been permantely altered, it's not pleasant and you don't feel resilient. You don't feel lucky, you do feel the pit where your emotions used to be. You wonder why people care deeply about those in Iraq while your life has been completely devastated. You wonder why you are so insignificant while one square mile in NYC still makes an entire country weep. Meanwhile, multiple zipcodes in southern Louisisana, yes, Louisiana is in the United States, are as devasted as either scenario. I...

I wrote the following days after Hurricane Katrina hit our lives. I think it's still important enough to republish. Sadly, I was more optimistic then than I am today. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Greetings, This is a relatively quick note to let you know that we are fine. My 86 year old mother, my dog, and I evacuated from the New Orleans area on Sunday morning. We left at 5 am and wound up in Chicago at 8:30 at night. The biggest irony was that this is my week of vacation and we were going to spend it in Pass Christian, MS, just about where Katrina hit landfall. The area was underwater for awhile and I can only assume that we would not have survived had we gone there. Initially, we were going to wait out the storm in Oxford, MS, about 2 hours south of Memphis. At a Sunday 10:30 am press conference, the mayor of New Orleans, Ray Nagin, told citizens to mandatory evacuate and not to return for five days. That was enough for us; we called a good friend in Chicago and found out ...