I am still jazzed at my discovery on Sunday that I was able to drive my 5-speed Miata one-armed. I hadn't tried since three years ago when my arm swelled up so with lymphodema and it stopped working all together. I sat in my little dream car and twisted my body every way possible to try and get the key in the ignition. I just couldn't bend enough around the steering wheel so sadly I determined my Miata days were over. It has sat in my garage collecting dust ever since. Sunday, I was nearing a bittersweet opportunity to sell the car - how I hated parting with my symbol of top-down-music-up road-esprit du free! "I better just make sure I can't drive this car before I let it go," I thought to myself. Well, low and behold, three years later, call me more limber and a little bit slimmer - I got the key in the ignition! Started like a charm. Next step - take it around the block. Gingerly I let off the clutch, pressed down the gas pedal and purred out of my driveway in first gear. With a blink of an eye, my hand left the wheel to shift into second. Hand back on the wheel and we're cruising down my street. Into neutral for the stop sign, then a quick pop back into first, deftly into second gear - no fear! Third was a stretch of the rib cage and not pretty but I made it. I can't scoot the seat up as closely as it needs to be in order to fully engage the clutch, making third gear a little tricky. Onto the freeway and into fourth gear and we're cruisin'! What a thrill to be back in the seat of my little white rumble car!
Long story short, I decided not to sell the Miata (dah!) and instead drove it to work Monday, top down music up! I lilted up the sidewalk to get ready for a meeting with the Superintendent. For the first time in three years, I actually read my contract instead of just signing it and I discovered they were only giving me credit for 32 hours - I was sure I had more graduate hours than that so asked for a review of transcript. Turns out there has been an oversight of 40 more credit hours - so happily I moved two steps laterally which gives me a little pay raise of about $4,000.00! Too bad I didn't pay attention these past two years!
Anyway, I taught with high spirits on Monday. My English 1 kids learned how to use three different graphic organizers to expand a topic sentence. Rachel's mom came in fore a performance conference during third hour. Rachel dresses goth, keeps hair over her face which is so covered in piercings that she looks like she fell into a tackle box;she sits at a front table by herself, and writes very lightly in pencil; this girl does not want to be noticed. Last week, I took some graded work back to her and commented on what a good job she had done. Since then, she has been contributing - albeit very quietly- just loud enough for me to hear- but she has become engaged in class. So I was able to report to her mother, in front of Rachel who was at her mom's side, that her daughter was doing well and was demonstrating some excellent writing skills. Rachel beamed.
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