Today I was teaching general music at an elementary school. I've subbed for her before, and it was a very good day (lots of musical chairs with kindergarteners).

The weather has been very "March is going out like a lamb" this week. Finally feeling like spring. However, the spring weather has it's flip side. This afternoon, severe thunderstorms started to roll into the area.

At about 2:OO, with 2.5 music classes left to go for the day, the principal announced that there was a tornado warning, not a drill, and that we needed to proceed to our assigned safe areas. So I lead my 20-some 2nd and 3rd graders, recorders still in hand, out into the hall. There were other classes out there, and all of us teachers got the kids lined up against the wall, kneeling with their hands over their heads. Then we started listening to the weather report on the radio.

Well, no one had seen any funnel clouds, but there was rotation visible on the NWS radar. None of it was near us, but the warning was county-wide. After a couple of minutes, the kids were allowed to sit up, but we had to stay in the hall.

The warning extended from 10 minutes to 30 minutes, to an hour. We got progress reports, but all of the hot spots were in other areas, and we didn't seem to be in the path of any of it. Still, we had to err on the side of caution. We didn't get to leave the hall until 3:05. If you've ever dealt with young grader schoolers, you'll know that is a very long time for them to have to sit against a wall not doing anything and staying quiet. We did our best to keep them entertained, but it was a challenge.

In the end, the buses were also delayed for a half hour, so all the bus kids had to sit in the gym for 30 minutes after school, waiting for them to arrive. (We showed them the start of Finding Nemo.) However, at least I was at an 8:30-3:17 school. Some of the grade schools run 7:45-2:32, and the district made them all stay put until 3:05, too. They probably didn't get buses 3:45 either, so that really would have been hell.

A friend of mine is trying on-line dating, and sent me the text of the profile of one of the guys who wrote to her. It was so awful I had to read it twice. In fact, it was so awful I had to pass it on. Part of me really wants to believe someone is making this up. Unfortunately, sad experience tells me that it is probably real. This, my friends, is quite the catch (note, spelling is exactly as she copy-pasted):

I would like a normal,attractive,realistic,fun,spontaneous(and i dont mean..4 days notice to do something, thats not spontaneous)(either is " oh, 11pm, thats too late to go out")girl with a wild side, not a skanky one.If you date black men,ever have ever will, move on..if you have nailed every guy in your 20's and now your ready to settle down..move on..If you think im judgemental,negative and opinionated.,oh well..your an idiot,move on. Id like someone who is willing to get to know me in person other than reading a profile..im alot of fun,more fun than the dork you would probably pass me up for..im very loyal and im attractive, fit and think i have the total package. Im not gonna sit on here and email you for 2 weeks before we go out and meet.I dont like 90% of these profiles so if i contacted you,its definatly a compliment and i hope you like me as well. All i know is whoever i wind up with will be happier than most every girl on this site..I dont like shallow or materialistic girls..our good looks and nice things should be a bonus not a requirment...and yes, im alot nicer in person..Dont waste my time, dont be inconsiderate and dont wink just because...or i will stalk you,lol

School of common sense..the opposite of what their teaching in todays schools.

...The thinking behind LeMahieu's proposal is so outdated it might belong in the State Historical Museum, but certainly not in our modern-day state Legislature. Lawmakers should quickly reject his proposal, even if it ends up targeting just the morning-after pill. Thankfully, LeMahieu was backpedaling Monday on his original proposal for a wider ban on the campus promotion and distribution of all birth control pills.

LeMahieu is right to be concerned about young people, far from home, engaging in alcohol-fueled parties ripe for risky behavior. Too many young people view spring break as a sexually charged, beer-and- booze marathon.

But which student is more likely to act responsibly? The student who gives little if any advanced thought or planning to their behavior? Or the student who meets with a health professional on campus to discuss and receive a prescription for precautionary medication that might help them avoid an unwanted pregnancy?

Obviously, it's the latter. ...read more

Spring break has begun, so guess who has gotten a miserable cold?

Pardon me while I go lie down and moan.

Bill will try to bar UW from giving out pills

A state lawmaker wants to prohibit clinics serving University of Wisconsin campuses from providing students with birth control pills and devices, contending such services promote promiscuity.

Rep. Daniel LeMahieu, R- Oostburg, said he was outraged when he learned University Health Services, the clinic serving UW-Madison students, had taken out ads in the two campus newspapers suggesting students get advance emergency contraceptive prescriptions before leaving town for spring break.

LeMahieu has begun drafting legislation to prohibit university health centers from promoting or providing the medication, known as the morning after pill. But because the pill is just a higher dose of the contraceptive hormones found in birth control pills, LeMahieu said he also will seek to block the university from prescribing all birth control pills. ...

Some women saw in the legislation a return to an era, not too long ago, when birth control was outlawed altogether. It wasn't until a 1972 U.S. Supreme Court decision that birth control pills and devices could be sold to unmarried couples. Wisconsin was the last state to repeal its ban on such sales, in 1976. ...more

How terribly mean-spirited. These are not high schoolers he is talking about, these are college students. Adults. Grown women. Who apparently are so easily lead that the availability of products to control their reproduction makes them hope right into the bed of any guy that asks. Because college students certainly don't have sex at all if you take away their contraceptive choices. Because college girls never get raped. Because all college guys use condoms, and would certainly step up to the plate and be stand up guys if there was ever an unwanted pregnancy.

<TMI alert>

When I was in college, I had no health insurance and no money. So it was a very good thing for me that UHS was there to provide free basic health care for me. I wasn't very interested in taking the pill, but I was glad to know that the option was there. And then came the month when my period just would not stop. The bleeding went on and on. I'd always been a heavy bleeder, but never like this. It was rather scary. I went to UHS, and they told me that the best option for me would be to get on the pill. I did and the bleeding stopped. Ever since then my periods have been light and regular. It was a life changing experience, in a very good way. Yet it didn't make me start running around having sex with anything that moved. If it had not been for UHS with the free clinic visit and the low-low-low cost pills, I would have continued to suffer.

Since then, I have become a staunch advocate for the pill, and extremely suspicious of anyone who would deny women (and girls) access. If a woman decides not to take the pill (or any other contraceptive) that is her decision. If a woman's doctor wants to advise her not to use a certain form of birth control, that is between them. It is not for pharmacists to refuse to fill valid prescriptions. It is not for legislators (male or female) to declare them forbidden.

Back off, buster!!

Welcome, Spring! We're glad to have you back. Come in, come in. Sit. Stay awhile.

Christopher Robbins, 20, was one of four males charged with sex crimes against a girl, then 16, on Dec. 7, 2002, after police discovered the videotape.

The Cook County jury deliberated for two hours in the Bridgeview courthouse before returning not-guilty verdicts on two counts of criminal sexual assault.

"I have a new life, I feel great," Robbins said after the verdict. "I have my life back together. I'll be fine."

He did not testify, nor did the defense call any witnesses on his behalf.

The vernal equinox is in two days and the WIAA boys basketball has started. Of course we're having snow storms.

I know it is wicked of me, but I had a satisfying laugh at this:

5-Year-Old Cuffed, Arrested in Florida

5-Year-Old Girl Cuffed, Taken Away in Police Cruiser in Florida After School Outburst

ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. Mar 18, 2005 — A 5-year-old girl was arrested, cuffed and put in back of a police cruiser after an outburst at school where she threw books and boxes, kicked a teacher in the shins, smashed a candy dish, hit an assistant principal in the stomach and drew on the walls.

The students were counting jelly beans as part of a math exercise at Fairmount Park Elementary School when the little girl began acting silly. That's when her teacher took away her jelly beans, outraging the child.

Minutes later, the 40-pound girl was in the back of a police cruiser, under arrest for battery. Her hands were bound with plastic ties, her ankles in handcuffs.

"I don't want to go to jail," she said moments after her arrest Monday.

No charges were filed and the girl went home with her mother.

While police say their actions were proper, school officials were not pleased with the outcome.more...

I've been there. Oh, I've been there. Nothing like dealing with a giant, violent freak-out. (Of course, years and years ago, I was also that kid. Never got arrested, though.)

I was just reading a short story in The New Yorker (I didn't like it very much, but I kept reading for some reason)> It started out in Bosnia, and the first 2/3 of the story was in Sarajevo. Then all of a sudden the setting shifted to Madison, WI. For some reason, I got a kick out of that.

I guess I'm a dork. I mean, we are a state capital with a world-class university, but we are also a small city in the upper midwest. Kind of obscuresville. So I get unreasonably excited by outside references to us. Used to be the same way when I lived in Milwaukee.

Today an elementary school principal made me cry. It was the second time in under a month that I got chewed out by an elementary school principal (different ones) for something over which I had no control--not having a schedule and/or clear sub plans. When I don't know where I am supposed to be at a given time because I haven't been given instrustions, or have been given inconsistant or incorrect instructions, I do what I can to remedy the problem. And sometimes I don't know some of the unwritten laws of the school (such as no one can walk down the wheelchair ramp if the stairs are blocked) because, well, they are unwritten. Getting dressed down for these things really frustrates me.

This was on top of the fact that I had already been kicked and hit (not hard) by a large 3rd grade boy having a temper tantrum. Later on, an autistic boy who was frustrated with his math problems sprayed spit all over his desk and my glasses. It was a fun day.

At least no one threw poop or set anyone else's hair on fire.

I realy want to find a new job. School lets out in just a couple of months, and that will leave me underemployed for three months once again. I had a lot of fun last summer, but I'm still paying for it.

While I am taking steps towards getting my teaching certification, my heart isn't 100% set on it, and it will be a lot of time and money before I can be a certified teacher. Pretty much every graphics or photography job out there wants experience that I just don't have at the moment, and I'm not in a position to go out and get any right now. (Unpaid internships are, well, unpaid.)

My hope is that there is some non-profit with an opening that needs my skills. I'm about ready to simply make up a list and send out a mass mailing of unsolicited resumes.

I feel like a recent graduate, in terms of my career path, expect that I graduated in 1999. I've been looking for real, career-track employment since I got laid-off in the fall of 2001. I'm not looking for a goldmine, but I'm still having no luck. Grrr...

I would be an excellent volunteer coordinator.

The Wisconsin Film Fest is coming up. It's almost like Christmas (says the girl with 32 selections on her wishlist).