Gangs in North St. Louis City/ Public Assistance

This was a topic at a pool party a week or so ago and I took it a step further and asked a class of my students what they think about the gangs taking over the neighborhoods in North St. Louis and this was their responses.

I posed the question: How do the residents in the neighborhoods where gang activity is becoming the common place, take back their neighborhoods.

Have a curfew for all residents.

Have more police presence.

Have the community "get togethers" so they can know each other.

Make a neighborhood association.

Try to get the gang members interested in something else.

Try to find them a good home or a good paying job.

Get the schools to work with the gang members.

Show them the importance of education.

The students hit all the important topics and they saved the best for last.

We need to help all of our young people to understand the importance of education, not street smarts, but how getting out of the rut is more important than trying to stay in the rut.

My Memphis Pictures

I did not know that Elvis was a duck fan. This is right outside the Peabody Hotel.


The ducks are leaving for the day.

The Peabody Hotel was beautiful but I was not about to spend $350.00 to spend the night there.

This couple was nice enough to share a table with us. The live music on Beale Street is AMAZING!

Memphis Here we come. It was a hot and steamy weekend in Memphis so we had to keep ourselves cooled down in the evenings on Beale Street.

I am a HUGE Elvis fan, so of course I was going to take "The Three Hour Tour" of Graceland for the second time in 3 months.

I hope you enjoyed my pictures of Memphis. I will work on the ones from South Carolina later this week.

Memphis Here we come. It was a hot and steamy weekend in Memphis so we had to keep ourselves cooled down in the evenings on Beale Street.

It was a Good Saturday except for......

Yesterday was a great day, except for from 7 PM to 9 PM but I will get to that later. It started off at our wonderful breakfast spot with our great friends. And let me tell you 5 of the 6 of us ATE!!!!!! Then after we had our bellies full, two other friends of ours came in with their newborn. She is SO CUTE. I know all babies are cute but she is the exception to all. After we gooed and ahhed at her; her mom finally took her out of the car seat so we could hold her. My partner held her first, this is the first time she has seen her. I have seen and held her already. I was trying to be NICE, dammit.
So we stayed there for longer than we intended because we both had to have this little angel in our arms for awhile. We had to say good bye and continue on our day. The next stop was Soulard Market. Well that is a ZOO, I tell you. But we got what we needed and headed out. Then back home to do some over do cleaning.
So the day went like that until I got a call to go SWIMMING. It was a hot one yesterday, so I gathered my suit and towel and waited for my ride. It was a nice day at the pool, not too many people and some intelligent conversation as well. I will be posting later about the topic because I want to know other people's point of view.
I went home ate something, took a nap and then tried to get into the shower to go out with the boys. Well I guess my body had other plans for my evening because I can't remember the last time I got sick like that. I was miserable for 2 hours last night. But waking up this morning, I am feeling fine. I am glad my body took control of my night last night, I really needed a down time night but DAMM, it didn't have to have me be miserable for 2 hours.
OK, I need to get breakfast going, off to the Cardinal game this afternoon, 100 level tickets, I am NOT passing that up.
Look for my blog titled PUBLIC ASSISTANCE coming soon.

BOSS

Back at the old Grind

Blog Entry: 8/22/08

SO here I am back at school. I have not had the opportunity to really write this summer. I was too busy with summer school, playing in Joe’s pool and taking small vacations to sit down at the computer to write. There has been a lot going on the last few months. I now remember how dark I used to be when I did not have to work during the summer and all I had to do was play in the sun. I have that color back and I LOVE IT. I was given numerous complements on returning to school on how good I looked. That always makes you feel better. I have maintained my weight, if not losing some more and that is a great feeling.

I had to get some organization into my life before school started. So I decided to clean out my dresser drawers, move some things around to make it easier for me to find, half asleep at 6:30 in the morning. After that “little job” I had to move to the closet. All summer I was just piling clothes up and not really putting them where I needed to, so it was getting a little overwhelming. But what I did find was more pants for me to wear. I have lost enough weight that I have multiple pairs of pants in a variety of colors to wear this year. Now I need to work on finding shirts and shoes to work with the pants. Darn, I will have to go shopping. And if you know me at all, those words would normally NOT come out of my mouth. I hated to shop, I was too large for most things and I did not want to spend the money on clothes when I was so unhappy with my size. Well things are changing. I am moving in the right direction and I plan on continuing that.

I am looking forward to this year at school. At the present time, I only have one class that is a little challenging for me and it is NOT MY FIRST PERIOD CLASS like it was last year. That starts my morning off so much better.

I hope you enjoy the pictures of my summer trips. I sure did. Chat with you all later. I will get the pictures add this weekend.

Have a great Friday everyone.

Pride 2008 was a blast. I really can't believe that we pulled off a pirate ship in two days. It is amazing what creative minds can do with scrap wood. The only thing we really bought was the paneling. I was thinking plywood and then painting the plywood but a wise woman suggested paneling. It totally looked like a pirate ship. I will attempt to add pictures to show you what I am talking about.

Look at these cuties!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

One day, I was at one of my local places that I frequent and I asked the owners, what about a float for Pride? Wouldn't that be fun? The owner said, that would be great but we have no time to put that together. Well I had a few rum drinks so I volunteered to put this whole thing together. Terri was in for it as well. So we started planning and within two weeks we had a pirate ship. As you can see, we have a cannon, we have pirates and we had BEADS!!!! Here are some of the other pictures.

All in all the pirate ship was a success. On our first attempt, we not only made the best pirate ship but we also won First Place for BEST FLOAT!!!!. I want to say thanks for all of the people that took time out of their lives to help us all have some fun.

BOSS

Found the Money

Just wanted to put a quick note on here that I found the money that I thought I lost. I now know a great hiding place for myself. HA HA

I am teaching summer school and there is not much time in my day to post, but I will try to get a real one out there this week.

BOSS

Frustration/ Anger

Man was I ever a mess yesterday. I got up Friday knowing it was going to be a different day at school but I would never of thought that I would have the day that I had. It started off in a panic. My team decided to use out PTO money to treat our kids to a lunch. I contacted the person I needed to, he gave me the money and I put it in a safe place. Well it was a safe place because I could not find the money Friday morning. I am sure age has something to do with this but I am not going to blame it on age just yet.

So I frantically searched my car, twice, went back inside to check my pants pockets, looked in the safe place, could not find it. I had to get to work, I had to figure something out by 11 am.

The first period was fine, believe it or not, my first hour really did not bother me much. I explained that we were waiting until 9:15 to practice the 8th grade promotion, they were cool with just hanging out and talking. I was satified with that as well, I had some last minute work to get completed.

So we went to the cafeteria to get the kids lined up, chaos at its best. We were not handed our lists of where the students were to sit until 5 minutes before we were to go downstairs. You will notice that through this post, organization was NOT our friend. So the teachers do what we do the best, get it done in a pinch. We all worked together and got the students to sit at their appropriate table, I don't know why that is needed because they are not called up on any stage, so who gives a fuck where they sit and how they come into the gym.

We, my team of teachers, tried to explain this to the person that was "organizing" the event earlier in the week but we were not listened to. OK, that sets up Friday.

So, the students line up, walk up the stairs, sit down, IT WAS ONLY THEN DID THE ORGANIZER REALIZE THERE WERE NOT ENOUGH SEATS FOR THE STUDENTS TO SIT!!!!!!!

ARE YOU KIDDING ME, she then said, well we can't practice correctly so send them to 3rd hour. Well that would be great for me and my team, our kids go to ancillary 3rd and 4th hour. But NO, our team leader does not have the balls to go against the tide, so instead of sending them off team for our break, he says, go back to homeroom. WHAT? Remember me saying we were going to have a lunch for the students... yea. I had to split my kids up in order to go and get the lunch.

My battery is going to die on my lap top.... so you will have to come back later for the rest of my Friday June 6th story.

Peace