Bugs, Bitches, and Basketball

Ok, once again a perfectly beautiful Saturday has been disrupted by real life. I'm not sure if this is a problem in the rest of the country, but around here we have Japanese beetles (they look like orange lady bugs, but they bite and smell bad). Apparently a few years ago, some lunkhead in the Dept. of Agriculture decided to import a gazillion of these things to get rid of our aphids... Have you ever heard the phrase, "don't fuck with Mother Nature"? See, these things have no natural enemies here, so they CAN NOT be stopped. Every fall swarms of them invade in biblical proportions. I have spent three hours vacuuming them from all over the inside of my house. It's not even like I just go hunting for them, I mean they COVER entire walls. Now before you think it's just me and my messy house, let me assure you, this is a huge problem for everyone. I filled 2 1/2 vacuum bags with these things, and they're still coming. I am seriously considering moving out and letting the fuckers have the house. When you contact the Dept. of Ag, they have no real suggestions as to how to get rid of these things that they brought in to start with. There are baits, but why would I want to ATTRACT them to anything? There are no predators for these bastards, so they keep reproducing and every year they get worse and worse. Some people say the smell of Mulberry will keep them away, so I bought tons of those nasty candles and sprays- now I just have a STINKY bug-filled house. Here's my point, if the Dept. of Ag. brought them in, they should personally be responsible for removing them. I want the guy who signed off on the deal to personally stand in my living room with a vacuum, sucking the little things up 24/7 until the season is over.

I intended to blog about my week, but I'm going to skip a lot of it. I was planning to bitch about the negativity of many of the teachers, but what's the point? When you have a 22 year-old teacher who says, "well, I WAS going to talk to my kids about careers in science, but most of them require college". (me- "so"?) "Well, most of them won't go anyway, so why show them what they can't ever have"- how do you begin to address that? I never say to my kids, "IF you go to college", I always say "WHEN". If their teacher doesn't believe that they can do it, why should they? So, instead of sharing those stories, I'm going to tell you about one of my kids, James. James was held back last year. He has a history of fighting in school and suspensions. His mom is a crackhead, he has several younger siblings, and they all live with his elderly grandmother. At the beginning of the year, I called home to tell his grandma that he was doing a good job (I do this with a lot of kids that seem like they could go either way- it usually works). Since then, he has worked very hard in my class. He has made great strides in his school performance and his behavior problems. Three weeks ago, I asked if he was going to try out for basketball. He didn't think they'd let him because he used to be in trouble a lot. I encouraged him to try, and I talked to Bill (he's the coach). Last night, James came running into my class just as I was about to leave for the day- he made the team and wanted to tell me! I was so proud of him! Bill was standing across the hall watching and smiling- he always says, "When I get too old to give a kid another chance, put me in a pine box".

Have a beautiful weekend!