we are the future

The school year has started and I had my first gig for a high school earlier this month. I was just going over my agency required "outcome measures" (feedback forms) and I wanted to share.

This was a ninth grade so most of the students were fourteen. We did five gigs that day - only about a half-hour each with groups of twenty to thirty. If you have ever done youth ed., you know you can't expect to accomplish too damn much in that amount of time, in that amount of chaos, with that large a group of students (who are in their orientation and don't even know or trust each other/their teachers yet - let alone you).

So, here is my standard gig:

blah, blah - me (i.e. intro)
list "healthy/unhealthy" relationship stuff on flipchart (they tell me)
go over teen power and control wheel (if I feel like it)
wrap a kid in tape.

Okay. Now you have a question. What this means is that I wrap at kid in masking tape while the others give examples of unhealthy/power and control tactics. Kid processes how it feels to be restricted in said manner. More blah, blah. Then I unwrap tape while others give examples of "how to help" a friend in an unhealthy relationship.

give candy-type bribe
issue feedback forms.

So here are some of my fave "outcome measure":

1) Mis-spells name of his school and says to "things to look for in a good, healthy relationship": "hotgirl." For "any suggestions for improving future healthy relationship presentations": "look for a hottopgirl."

hmmm. Is this in reference to breasts or asphalt?

2) One has good content, I think. He says healthy is "being able to talt to you partner about probems."

3) "Talk into partner" (astral projection?)

4) "not bosyness"

5) "Yes, don't abbuse stuff."


And my favorite is a typed letter that the guidance director clearly copied and then sent (to me and similar ones to other presenters) saying:

Dear ms. Linder;

I am a freshman at (school name). Thank you for participating in our Freshman Awareness program last week.

It gave me a nice relief of not having to be in classes all day, and I got to watch you wrap some students in tape. I liked that your class wasn't so serious and that we could have some fun. I rated your presentation the highest rate.

Thank you again for taking the time to tell us about your organaization.

(name)

Yay, me! Saving the world, one little shit at a time. ;)

kitty, kitty

Some kitties love the camera.

Mabon

Happy Mabon (Autumn Equinox)! Hope you eat a big loaf of bread.

Life is progressing. I have coffee that a lovely co-worker just brought me. I dropped some processed cheese on my keyboard. No damage and actually quite amusing.

Nettipotts got spayed yesterday. She is still weak from the anesthesia so that part was scary, but she seems to be steadily improving. We have a tentative home for her in a week or so. If not, she is fine where she is.

By the way, when I say "we" I mean my mom. I know, I know. How can I be a healthy, stable adult when the gods of television and movies say that living with one's parents is bad? Well, I look at it this way -- if two adult, single women can get along and trust each other and join forces to afford the mortgage on a house and land - unable to do so otherwise - why not? So we get to live free of landlords and have wiccan rituals in our yard, fill the place with cats, and blah blah - whatever. Plus we can cover the floor with ridiculous amounts of pillows so that a sick cat can feel free to topple over - like we did for Nettipots when she came back from the vet.

So, there. Power to the people.

Fall!

Yay, Fall in Maine! It is my fave season - even if it has to be followed by winter.

Did the Komen Fund Breast Cancer 5K this weekend. It was good. There were over three thousand people there. There was also one little, white male fundy standing in the middle of the park holding a cardboard sign about "abortion causing breast cancer." That was one brave little fundy. Perhaps he was looking to martyr himself -- be eaten by the feminists and earn a seat at the right hand of god. But I think he lived. I certainly didn't eat him.

My text about the bog is below all the pics. I outsmarted myself by saving the text as a draft before I posted the photos. Oh, well. So let me restate that all the pics below this post are from my mom's birthday walk at the Bangor Bog. We had fun. Then we went to see "Hollywoodland," which was good -- though ageism-inspired suicide may not be the optimal topic for celebrating one's sixty-fourth. She didn't seem to see that angle and enjoyed it, at any rate. Now she wants to see "The Illusionist" again. That was very good.

So...on to the bog. Enjoy the pics and don't get your feet wet. :)

bog and still more bog

pitcher plant

this little puppy holds bog water like a "pitcher" and uses it to kill and eat bugs, apparently. COOL!

bogging

wierd black thing

your guess is as good as mine.

toadstools

birthday at the bog

Sept. 14 was my mom's sixty-fourth birthday. We went to the Bangor Bog to have a walk on the boardwalk. It was awesome! Mom is a very accomplished herbalist but even she had "no idea" what some of the stuff was. I will post as many pics as the computer can digest. :) Happy Birthday, Mommy!!!

what would saint francis do?

I did my usual Thursday in our outreach office at a church dedicated to St. Francis. Appropriately enough, the church bathroom was full of stray cats. Apparently the mommy cat and her kittens were living in the local dump. The dump employees had been feeding them, but the pile of trash they were living in was to be moved, so they had to be captured and relocated. They ended up in the church bathroom while the secretary frantically tried to re-home them. Of course all the kittens went, but not mommy. She was on the way to the pound, so I took her. I am hoping to re-home her, but I'm calling her nettipotts (or nibbles, since she eats so much). St. Francis is cool, but I'm identifying more with Noah, these days.