Meanderings of the Mind
It's 2 am. My mind does its best meandering in the early morning hours. I had been thinking about journaling the past two days, especially after telling one of my students that he should continue to write each day using a word as a prompt. He sounded so dedicated to the idea that it made me feel a little guilty. Funny, how kids can do that.
Lots has happened since my last posting. We've made arrangements for a nice apartment, got the electricity turned on, and rented some furniture for it. We've gotten some more items from the house, courtesy of Adam and Amber. They both have seen the house inside and out. It must have been a shock to them as they describe the number of trees that came down in the area and on our property and how the inside of my house revealed a down joist, sheetrock and a completely smashed light fixture. The tree over the kitchen did the most damage. There seems to be two other locations in the roof that Mother Nature forced her way into. I don't know why I think of this storm, Hurricane Katrina, as a show of Mother Nature's strength. I think it has something to do with some ruminations that brain started having around the end of the school year last May.
You know how sometimes your brain takes on a worldly problem and munches on it for a while. Mine does. The problem that seemed to take over my background memory was how life could change in a short period of time. I thought about how things are entirely connected together. I thought of how people would react to the change. I even imagined what my life would be like. Every time I passed these apartment complexes near the grocery story that I frequent, I imagined that I was walking around looking at the place as if I was going to have to live there.
It seemed a waste of thought and time and eventually other ruminations took over the brain cells. I had graduate classes to attend to and the new school year to prepare for. Most of my brain meandering took on a more immediate purpose of how to best organize my classroom, how to keep the paperwork in line and how to organize all my professional books. Think of it, how many teachers make a complete catalog of all their professional materials. I did. For no apparant reason. Turns out that I have about $2,000 of professional books on my shelf in my classroom. That does not include all the novels and books that I have available for my students. Gifted teachers have to have a full range of things to plan for those little racing minds; some of them dealing with huge problems far ahead of the maturity. That list is sitting on the memory chip of my laptop, a piece of electronics that has been a lifesaver during this side trip in life.
Sometimes, my mind takes over in a more speedier manner, like when I was packing to evacuate from Mother Nature's little offspring. In fact, it forced me to ask very tough questions. One thing that guided my thought was, 'what would you need if you were going to be gone for 3 months?' It also stated to take only 'what is irreplaceable'. I based all my decisions on just those two pointed thoughts. I did a pretty quick job of packing. I still forgot my recipe box but I remembered the beta fish that I had kept alive for 4 weeks. During one of those midnight vigils where the brain wakes up but the body doesn't, I remembered Sabrina's football tickets.
Now, my brain has stopped its rumination and is now attending to the more immediate needs of making sure everyone is safe. It's charting a path for the next few weeks. What will I need to set up an apartment here? What will Amber need to set up her place in Baton Rouge? When will I be able to return to Pine View? When will my house be inhabitable. The overriding question of all is, where and how are all the people that I know?
Four of the forty people in Dave's workgroup are still missing. I have been able to contact my principal's husband so I know she ok and I have read that Pine View is now a feeding location for the American Red Cross. Riley is one of four students that have checked in over the Internet. I wish I could hear from all of them. I've left our class webpage up with a big red note on it saying 'please email me!" Somewhere in my stuff I have email information. When I get back to my classroom, there will be four of those email addresses still written on the chalkboard where the kids decided to make a list of everyone's chat names and email. Maybe they had an inkling about all this when one of them suggested to share their information.
The meanderings of my mind will continue even when I can't get it out and down on paper or memory chip. Maybe the whole experience has taught me to document some of those ruminations so that others will see the connections like I have. I can't really prove that I had an intuition about the catastrophe, it just feels like I did. I wonder how many other people's minds dealt with the same issues. When we all get back together, I hope I will find out.
Lots has happened since my last posting. We've made arrangements for a nice apartment, got the electricity turned on, and rented some furniture for it. We've gotten some more items from the house, courtesy of Adam and Amber. They both have seen the house inside and out. It must have been a shock to them as they describe the number of trees that came down in the area and on our property and how the inside of my house revealed a down joist, sheetrock and a completely smashed light fixture. The tree over the kitchen did the most damage. There seems to be two other locations in the roof that Mother Nature forced her way into. I don't know why I think of this storm, Hurricane Katrina, as a show of Mother Nature's strength. I think it has something to do with some ruminations that brain started having around the end of the school year last May.
You know how sometimes your brain takes on a worldly problem and munches on it for a while. Mine does. The problem that seemed to take over my background memory was how life could change in a short period of time. I thought about how things are entirely connected together. I thought of how people would react to the change. I even imagined what my life would be like. Every time I passed these apartment complexes near the grocery story that I frequent, I imagined that I was walking around looking at the place as if I was going to have to live there.
It seemed a waste of thought and time and eventually other ruminations took over the brain cells. I had graduate classes to attend to and the new school year to prepare for. Most of my brain meandering took on a more immediate purpose of how to best organize my classroom, how to keep the paperwork in line and how to organize all my professional books. Think of it, how many teachers make a complete catalog of all their professional materials. I did. For no apparant reason. Turns out that I have about $2,000 of professional books on my shelf in my classroom. That does not include all the novels and books that I have available for my students. Gifted teachers have to have a full range of things to plan for those little racing minds; some of them dealing with huge problems far ahead of the maturity. That list is sitting on the memory chip of my laptop, a piece of electronics that has been a lifesaver during this side trip in life.
Sometimes, my mind takes over in a more speedier manner, like when I was packing to evacuate from Mother Nature's little offspring. In fact, it forced me to ask very tough questions. One thing that guided my thought was, 'what would you need if you were going to be gone for 3 months?' It also stated to take only 'what is irreplaceable'. I based all my decisions on just those two pointed thoughts. I did a pretty quick job of packing. I still forgot my recipe box but I remembered the beta fish that I had kept alive for 4 weeks. During one of those midnight vigils where the brain wakes up but the body doesn't, I remembered Sabrina's football tickets.
Now, my brain has stopped its rumination and is now attending to the more immediate needs of making sure everyone is safe. It's charting a path for the next few weeks. What will I need to set up an apartment here? What will Amber need to set up her place in Baton Rouge? When will I be able to return to Pine View? When will my house be inhabitable. The overriding question of all is, where and how are all the people that I know?
Four of the forty people in Dave's workgroup are still missing. I have been able to contact my principal's husband so I know she ok and I have read that Pine View is now a feeding location for the American Red Cross. Riley is one of four students that have checked in over the Internet. I wish I could hear from all of them. I've left our class webpage up with a big red note on it saying 'please email me!" Somewhere in my stuff I have email information. When I get back to my classroom, there will be four of those email addresses still written on the chalkboard where the kids decided to make a list of everyone's chat names and email. Maybe they had an inkling about all this when one of them suggested to share their information.
The meanderings of my mind will continue even when I can't get it out and down on paper or memory chip. Maybe the whole experience has taught me to document some of those ruminations so that others will see the connections like I have. I can't really prove that I had an intuition about the catastrophe, it just feels like I did. I wonder how many other people's minds dealt with the same issues. When we all get back together, I hope I will find out.