Life...

is running on as fast as ever. The school year will be over in 6 weeks. I'm excited for summer, as all teachers and students are by this time of year.
Aside from that, this week the Tiger's lost in overtime after having a significant lead and blowing integral free throws... unfortunately, i've said all season that free throws will be the death of us... and yes, they got us in the end.
Many things are on my mind this evening - how to parent a step-child who's not getting many guidelines at home. The poor baby is screaming for help - every week she gets in the car and has some new story of someone seriously injured that she goes to school with - this week a 6th grade girl was in a car wreck where the car flipped, the airbags deployed, but she only suffered some scratches. Those scratches were self inflicted by her hands when she threw up her arms to protect herself from the airbag - but her arms weren't broked or injured. She even lies over simple stupid stuff - she'll tell me one thing and turn around and tell my husband something completely different right in front of me. Now i'm sure you're asking yourself why I don't just say something - confront the issue... well that's because she'll twist it around and punish my husband by not coming over and saying that we don't love her or don't want her.
I am teaching Their Eyes Were Watching God in my 11th grade English class this six weeks. We began a discussion today about society's expectations of us - I asked my students what they thought society expected of them. Their responses were fairly similar "to fail", "to drop-out", "to get arrested", "to have multiple children"... and so I asked them why they are allowing themselves to be contained by society's expectations. I asked why it wasn't shocking or atrocious for a 16 year old girl in their area of town to have 1 or 2 or 3 children - why no one bats an eye... I asked why when a young black man gets arrested for selling drugs or shooting someone that there's not a complete outrage... why are these occurrences accepted as the norm? Why is it that a 16 year old girl in one part of the city, state, country is expected to do and behave differently than a 16 year old girl any where else... it's insane and utterly ridiculous. It's a hypocritical part of our society that really bothers me.
I hope I inspire at least one child to not be boxed in by what someone else thinks they should be or do --- in my ideal world, i'd inspire them all!