Category: school

You are a Bada**

Last Thursday after my first period class, a kid I’ll call J stayed behind and handed me a new yellow paperback.

He hesitated and said, “I’m sorry that I missed your tutorial yesterday. I know you’re here to help us and that people take advantage of you….”

Oof! Gut punch. Kids say the darnedest things.

The day before I had hosted a lunchtime tutorial, pizza provided by the school, for students who haven’t taken the SAT (Scholastic Aptitude Test) and need to pass another government-mandated standardized test (TSI—the Texas Success Initiative) created by College Board (the entity that makes beaucoups of cash by selling both tests plus Advanced Placement). These kids have taken the test before and failed and must retest. The test deems the students college-ready, and if our school has a certain percentage of students who don’t pass this test, then we look bad. We lose some prestige. Therefore, the intervening tutorial. We discussed grammar and multiple-choice test-taking tips. Some of the kids were one question away from passing on their last attempt. Meanwhile, J, who had a lead in our all-school musical Mamma Mia last semester was giving me a book about how to stop doubting my greatness and start living an awesome life. Somehow, I know he is college ready, and I don’t need test results to tell me. If he doesn’t go to college, who the F cares? J is already living an awesome life and sharing his secret with me.

“…but I think you’re amazing,” he said, “and I hope you’ll read this book.”

I may or may not have had tears in my eyes when I gave him a speechless fist bump. I was touched by the gift. “I will absolutely read this book,” I said. Students filed through the door for my next class, J left, and I composed myself.

Yesterday, I left work at lunch. This morning, I stayed home. The struggle is real. I was supposed to tutor during my lunch again today—and I just can’t. The test is March 22. There is time to postpone. I picked up the book from J and read. Chapter 4 resonated.

“In the self-help/spiritual community, ‘Ego’ is used to refer to the shadow self, or the false self, or the self that’s acting like a weenie. It’s the part of us that’s driving the bus when we do things like sabotage our happiness by cheating on our husbands or wives because deep down we don’t feel worthy of being loved, or that refuses to follow our hearts and pursue an acting career because we are terrified to be seen for who we really are, or that goes on and on and on and on about how great we are and shows off our muscles because we’re insecure and need lots of outside validation that we’re good enough.”

Jen Sincero

Ego—the self that’s acting like a weenie. That’s funny. How many of us are driven by our insecurities and the need for validation that we’re good enough…smart enough…sexy enough…rich enough…skinny enough…badass enough…just simply enough? Yeah, that’s what I thought.

“The leading cause of sucking (staying broke, dating morons, uncontrollably crying in public because we hate our lives) is that we haven’t yet woken up to how truly powerful we are or to how massively abundant our Universe is.”

Jen Sincero

Speaking of the Universe, I’ve heard the part about its massive abundance before. Seeing these words again seems like a message tailored for me.

“The [ego] operates according to your limiting false beliefs. This is the garbage that was stuffed into your subconscious as a kid that doesn’t ring true for you, as well as the decisions you’ve made about yourself that are less-than flattering or empowering. It gets validation from outside sources (I’m doing this to win your love, your opinion of me is more important than my opinion of me), it’s reactive (My circumstances control my life, I am a victim), fear-based, and extremely committed to keeping you safely confined within the reality you’ve created based on those false limiting beliefs (otherwise known as your comfort zone). The [ego] lives in the past and in the future and believes you are separate from everything around you.

Your true self or your higher self or your superhero self (your non-BS self)…is the part of you that operates according to your connection to Source Energy. It gets validation from within (I love and trust myself, this feels right to me, I have a purpose, I am loved), it’s proactive (I’m in control of my life, I think I’ll head on out and kick me some ass), love based, and is committed to creating a reality based on your limitless potential…Your true self lives in the present (not stuck in your head), totally believes in miracles and is one with the Universe.

Jen Sincero

The false self (based on your subconscious and limiting false beliefs) vs. the true self (connected to a higher power AKA Source Energy). The true self validates from within, takes action, seeks limitless potential, stays out of head, believes in miracles, and loves their fellow human. Suddenly, I find myself thinking of 1 Corinthians 4-8. What a lovely truth!

The Future of Writing

In the last couple of weeks, I stumbled across two articles from The Atlantic, “The College Essay Is Dead,” the byline: “Nobody is prepared for how AI will transform academia,” and then “The End of High School English.” Part of me feared reading what I already knew. With artificial Intelligence, who needs intelligence? Who needs teachers? If technology can do the students’ work, why would I waste my time grading it? And how would I even know if students are doing their own work unless all writing is completed in class, handwritten, no devices? Where’s the grading app for teachers? The whole dilemma is above my paygrade…

I’ve joined the revolution. First, I signed up for ChatGPT and told it what I wanted. Within seconds the app spit out an 18-line poem, not exactly a sonnet, but with the time saved in creating the thing, I could easily delete one stanza to fulfill my own request.

My apologies for wasting your time with bot-created poetry. I for one have little patience for wasted time…

Next semester I’ll have 191 students writing research papers, which I will grade. Heavy sigh. Anybody care to guess what percentage of my kids will use this new technology? I’ll ask for their honesty in May.

Counting My Blessings

(Art School Version)

In thirteen weeks,
I climbed 8,125 stairs,
from the underground parking 
to my classroom on floor four.
Not that I’m counting.

Okay, I am.

125 per day. 6 flights.
5 mornings per week.
13 weeks.
Somedays more.

My phone keeps track—
13 flights on Friday,
12 on Thursday,
10 on Wednesday,
11 on Tuesday,
7 on Monday.

Each time,
my thighs burn,
my heart pounds,
I breathe hard—
but easier 
through 13 weeks.
I’ve lost a pound or 2—
okay 8, depending on
when I weigh.
Not that I’m counting.

Okay, I am.
Blessings have a way
of hiding
until
you look.

I count more
around the school
Steps and blessings
and such great kids.

I don’t know 
the girl
in the t-shirt 
that says,
“Nice 
is the new cool.”
But I smile, 
as does she.
Then my student 
greets me, 
“What up, 
Mrs. Byers?”
Her good energy 
spreads like fire. 
I overhear another say, 
“Today—
is gonna be amazing.”
He catches my eye, 
and his flicker.
I nod and hope 
mine spark, too, 
a torch to pass on.

There’s often time 
in my day
for extra steps.
Time—
another blessing. 

Music swells 
in the stairwells
a flute trio, 
a vocal solo.
My heart responds,
drawn by the pulse
of art and life.

One flight down, 
Dancers in leotards 
perfect techniques 
at the barre.
And I—
stroll a little straighter,
arabesque 
if only in my head,
held a little higher,
past the studios,
past the tune of piano,
down another flight 
to the art gallery
to contemplate
lines and images,
color and messages. 

There are days 
I descend 
two extra flights 
exit the building,
walk a few city blocks 
for lunch and fresh air
before ascending the stairs

back to floor four,
somedays to the fifth,
where rehearsals ensue

and my heart beats to
the Mariachi, 
vocal, and
orchestral 
excerpts.

In a small practice room
with an open door,
my student sits 
before a harp.
“I didn’t know 
you play harp,” 
I say.

“I don’t usually tell," 
says she, 
and I leave
her to her secret 
and take the stairs
back to my classroom
and prepare 
for my last class
of Week Thirteen,
not to mention
Thanksgiving.
Proud teacher moment. One of these kids slaying Pavane by Fauré is my student. Please click the link and enjoy!
On my classroom desk, “One Minute with God.” Thank you, Becky! And Happy Thanksgiving, Everybody!

Every Day Is a New Day

I don’t know how many people have jobs with built-in opportunities for do-overs. I teach school, therefore, this past Monday was a new beginning for me—in so many ways.

On my first day of school, I opted for the stairs vs. the elevator, from the lower level of the parking garage to my fourth-floor classroom. 71 steps from the garage to the second floor, 98 to the third floor, 125 to the fourth floor. But who’s counting?

One thing I’ve noticed about my co-workers who take the stairs—they’re fit. What if the stairs are their not-so-secret secret? Game on, Stairs. Game on.

Students at the performing and visual arts high school started the day in their art areas—theater, dance, instrumental, vocal, creative writing, or visual arts. Academic teachers, like me, joined one of the art areas for crowd control, so I went to the theater department. Theater, however, had everything under control, so I simply stood by in awe.

The senior thespians, thirty or so, stood center stage, one by one, in the Black Box Theater. Each offered their advice to the underclassmen, and their words were sheer power. “Be kind and easy to work with. It will open doors for you.” And so many more I can’t recount, but what I heard set the tone for my day.

And my students—each class period—were quite possibly the loveliest ever in my twenty-two new beginnings. No one complained about sitting in alphabetical order, which is my strategy for memorizing 192 new names. They folded printer paper into thirds like a brochure and wrote their name on one side where I could see and call on them. On the inside, they wrote a goal for themselves before they graduate and one piece of advice for me. Then, they worked together on a poem puzzle, fill-in-the-blank with cut-out pieces of words and phrases. (By the way, not my original idea. I borrowed the lesson from a generous giver found here.)  I had kids who pulled it off. Here’s the key to the puzzle: 

Good Bones by Maggie Smith

Life is short, though I keep this from my children.
Life is short, and I’ve shortened mine
in a thousand delicious, ill-advised ways,
a thousand deliciously ill-advised ways
I’ll keep from my children. The world is at least
fifty percent terrible, and that’s a conservative
estimate, though I keep this from my children.
For every bird there is a stone thrown at a bird.
For every loved child, a child broken, bagged,
sunk in a lake. Life is short and the world
is at least half terrible, and for every kind
stranger, there is one who would break you,
though I keep this from my children. I am trying
to sell them the world. Any decent realtor,
walking you through a real shithole, chirps on
about good bones: This place could be beautiful,
right? You could make this place beautiful.

Students annotated the text, and then we discussed the importance of certain words and phrases and clauses. They liked Maggie Smith’s poem and the freedom to say “shithole.”

“Good,” I said. “But what’s this poem about?”  

“It’s about a mother protecting her child from the dark side of life,” they said.

“Yes,” I said, “but what’s it really about?”

“It ends on a note of hope,” they said. “It’s about the duality of life…She believes her child can make the world beautiful—We can all make life more beautiful.”

And like that, my students analyzed poetry on Day One.

“And we all bring our own experiences to our reading,” I said. “Could the speaker be a teacher? Could her children be students? Life is short and half terrible, but we have the power, especially as artists, to make it beautiful.”

At the end of my school day, I read their advice to me. One said, “Just love us. We love you already.” My heart burst a bit, broke a bit, and I breathed a prayer of gratitude. From my classroom, I walked down the hallway to the stairwell, took six flights down to the parking garage, and hopped in my car to drive home—to wait for another brand-new day.

On Sisters, Words, and Writing

Last Friday, my big sister flew to see me. From the airport, we drove thirty-eight miles to the beach, checked into a historic hotel, exchanged our street clothes for swimsuits, dashed out to the pool, and lingered, cool beverages in hand. Freedom persisted. Our feet hit the sand. The tides rolled in with the ocean breeze. Seashells appeared to be found. Fish tacos beckoned, and we answered the call. It was a weekend of sisterhood, a salve for my soul, a respite by the sea, one last hoorah before the inevitable back-to-school.

As I unloaded my deepest, darkest secrets, I heard my speech sprinkled with words like—actually, honestly, literally, ironically, hopefully…. When had I picked up this nasty adverb habit? An overuse of basically unnecessary words? (I meant to do that). When I say honestly, does that mean I’m not being honest the rest of the time? And if something is literally happening, isn’t it happening either way? And who knows if whatever seemed to me ironic was actually ironic? Even my computer (as I typed the last sentence) says: More concise language would be clearer for your reader.

Even at the beach, Steven King’s words echoed across time and place:

“The road to hell is paved with adverbs.”

Stephen King

By the way, King’s book, On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft, is a worthwhile read. Apparently, it didn’t break me of my verbal adverb compulsion. But you know what they say—the first step is admitting you have a problem. Obviously, I have teaching on my mind.

A summer ago in my last Creative Writing class, my professor said words that resonate still. I wrote them down:

“Stories are made from words. Your story is only as good as you have command of the language.”

Dr. James Boyleston

I love words, and I love the beach. Where better place to study? These words I found online:

“When you catch an adjective, kill it. No, I don’t mean utterly, but kill most of them—then the rest will be valuable. They weaken when they are close together. They give strength when they are far apart.”

Mark Twain

“Poetry is all nouns and verbs.”

Marianne Moore

Now, I can’t read without seeing how the author uses adjectives. I hope my students will see the same. This year when we read poetry in class, we’ll test Marianne Moore’s theory about the nouns and verbs. Mark Twain, I see your adverb, and I think anything in moderation works fine.

These words I found in a book about writing called, Sin and Syntax:

“A dependence on is and its family screams ‘rough draft.'”

Constance Hale

The key word is dependence. My past students have counted be verbs “am, is, are, was, were, be, been being” in their writing and reduced the number through revisions. Constance Hale suggests an 8:1 ratio of action verbs to be verbs. I think I’ll have my students test this idea with the stories we read.

And these words I found in my all-time favorite book about writing, Francine Prose’s Reading Like a Writer:

With so much reading ahead of you, the temptation might be to speed up. But in fact it’s essential to slow down and read every word. Because one important thing that can be learned by reading slowly is the seemingly obvious but oddly underappreciated fact that language is the medium we use in much the same way a composer uses notes, the way a painter uses paint. I realize it may seem obvious, but it’s surprising how easily we lose sight of the fact that words are the raw material out of which literature is crafted.

Francine Prose

The word-studying English teacher in me notices a few adverbs above, but also the parallelism of the adverb/adjective pairs: “seemingly obvious” and “oddly underappreciated.” I also see a number of those “be” verbs, “is” and its family, and that’s okay. Sometimes an “is” makes our clearest points. Other times our writing advances with action.

And these words I found in a comment on my blog:

We wouldn’t teach piano without having the student listen to Chopin or teach painting without looking at great art. Too often, English teachers give assignments without enough models of the form first.

Evelyn Krieger

I’m betting Evelyn Krieger has read Francine Prose, but as I head back to school, I appreciate her reminder.

My big sister headed home Sunday. Goodbyes are hard. I can’t help thinking my mother conspired from on high to make the trip possible and see her girls together, beachside.

As the days of summer dwindle, part of me is grateful for a new school year beginning, and part of me is sad for the vacation ending. Such is life. For everything there is a season. The waves come and go, the moments come and go, the feelings come and go. Everything is temporary.

On the Last Day of School

I had one last duty—lunch duty on the patio, probably my most favorite duty in twenty-one years of teaching. Outside, in the shade, with a breeze, I guarded the gate from student escapes prior to the state-mandated dismissal time. Even though the students had taken their last exams, they had to stick around for lunch by law, so I took my chicken sandwich outside and sat alone at a long table—to monitor the gate with my eyes and presence.

Students trickled through the glass doors from the building at 12:05. Two boys sat three tables over and behind me and played video games on hand-held devices. A girl sat one table over to my right and waited for her friends. We made eye contact. I didn’t know her, but I knew she would be my student one day, so I said, “You did it. How do you feel?”  

“It’s bittersweet,” she said.

I nodded my head in a knowing way. My students graduated the week before. Their finals and last classes the week before that. So, speaking of bittersweet, I had been doing a whole lot of nothing. Thumb twiddling. Some planning. Some online trainings. Not to mention those days I had COVID. School without students is not necessarily fun. I would rather teach any day, and now my students are off to do amazing things at amazing places. Next year will be another fresh start. New students. Some different literature. Another chance to do things better. Truth—year after year.

Friends joined the girl. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine. They posed for selfies and cussed a bit and cracked each other up and hugged one another hard. Some ate lunch. No one tried to escape. They were happy for the upcoming summer and to be among friends. Aren’t we all?

This year has been wild, not as in hiking the Pacific Crest Trail wild, but as in surviving my first-year teaching seniors at a performing arts high school wild. Today it’s over for now, my last day of year twenty-one, reading a book and taking selfies, a bittersweet but happy start to summer.

Embrace Your Squeak

Random weekday.
School.
7:30 am.

To my classroom 
from the elevator 
in an otherwise 
quiet corridor, 
my most 
comfy 
shoes 
squeak.

Squeak. Squeak. 
Squeak. Squeak.
Each 
irksome
footfall 
makes me feel 
meek. 

How many times 
have I met
a student's eyes?
Felt compelled 
to apologize? 

Something like: 
“Good morning. 
(insert name),
I’m wearing 
my squeaky shoes 
today.”

Finally, one,
her name is Emma,
said, “Mrs. B.,
that was me 
yesterday. 
Just embrace it.” 

My smile 
spread wide 
from cheek
to cheek. 

And when 
my most 
comfy
shoes
inevitably 
squeak, 
I stand 
a little taller, 
embrace it, 
and squeak on 
and on and on...

Embracing!

The Time I Entered a Pie Eating Contest

Around the corner, I heard voices,  pleading: “But, you’re our favorite teacher.” The kids couldn’t see me. I should’ve realized the potential ambush. Why hadn’t I walked in the opposite direction? Maybe I was curious to see the favorite teacher.

So, I rounded said corner where said kids had congregated around another teacher, who stood there shaking her head and saying, “No way!” Emphatically. That was final. She walked away as I arrived.

The kids spun on me. “Mrs. Byers!” Their little voices jingled like bells. A leader for the group, one of my favorite seniors, said, “We were just talking about you.”

Right, I thought. I eyed her suspicious, smiling face, along with four or five others, all great kids. I knew this meant trouble.

“We need a favor,” she said, eyebrows raised. She paused for dramatic effect. The girl has moxie. “Would you be in the pie eating contest? It would be so great!”

“Pie eating contest?” I said. Their little faces shone with hope.

Favorite student continued, “You can choose your own entrance song.” Her energy was contagious.

“I can choose my own entrance song?” I said. I’m quite sure my eyes blazed at the thought of a grand entrance!

Another voice piped in. “That sounds like a yes.”

“What kind of pie?”

“Fudge pie!”

I busted out laughing and shook my head. I rolled my eyes and fake-pondered for a few more seconds. “Okay,” I said, giving in moments-too-soon.

A tiny voice in my head echoed, “Sucker!”

And that’s how I came to be in this year’s Teacher Pie Eating Contest. The absurdity slayed me, and I snickered all the way home while considering entrance songs.

Not the actual pie.

Fast forward to the day, and I’ll leave the details to your imagination. With grand steps and a gesture or two, I made my entrance, and the kids went concert wild. Their energy overtook my body, and I danced like no one was watching. Except the whole school was there, and then I competed in pie eating. The pies were chocolate and vanilla pudding. It wasn’t the first rodeo for some of my opponents who came prepared with goggles. We couldn’t use our hands. Thank the Lord someone else stepped up for the win. Still, I won street cred with the kids, and that was enough for me.

Sometimes that’s what teachers do.

Twenty-five years ago or so, during my first few years of teaching, I volunteered to throw a backflip on a trampoline during a middle school assembly. In front of about 500 kids and school staff. And you know what? I fell on my face (click link for story). So—I stood up and did it again. This time I landed it. I don’t know if the kids took anything away from that experience, but I did. Sometimes, you don’t have any choice but to try again and save face.

Another time, I participated in the teacher spelling bee. My ego hurt when I went out before my time, but maybe there’s a lesson to be learned here. Maybe it isn’t all about me. Unless, of course, I have my own entrance song.

The first fifteen seconds or so. My entrance song.

Tetrameter?

27. “Which of the following lines is written in tetrameter?”

I shook my head. I was reading a test written by a high-stakes test-making conglomerate when I stumbled upon this question. This is the type of test kids taking advanced English classes in the US must pass to receive college credit while in high school. The type of test I would give as a semester exam—as a practice test for the real deal in May. “That’s one of the dumbest questions I’ve ever heard,” I said to myself.

I suppose, if students knew that any poetry term ending in “meter” had to do with rhythms and syllables, they might have a fighting chance at the answer. If they counted the syllables of all five answer choices and realized that four of the choices had ten syllables and one choice had eight syllables, they might realize that one of these things is not like the other. As an English teacher of twenty plus years, I had never used the word tetrameter in my classroom. Pentameter. Yes. Iambic pentameter.

In Shakespeare’s tragedy about Julius Caesar, Mark Antony looks upon Caesar’s fresh corpse and says,

“Oh, par | don me, | thou bleed | ing piece | of earth…”

We could discuss the apostrophe, the personification, the metaphor, and the perfect iambic pentameter. We could divide the line into five feet, each two syllables, also called an iamb. An unstressed syllable followed by a stressed syllable. If I put my hand under my chin and say the words aloud, my chin will drop on the stressed syllable. “Oh” is unstressed. The “par” in pardon is stressed. The rest of the line follows the same pattern. Anything beyond iambic pentameter, I must look up and study.  

And so, in preparation for the semester exam, I gave my students my best iambic pentameter lesson as a quick segue into what the test wanted them to know about tetrameter. We haven’t studied Shakespeare yet. “If penta in Greek means five, what does tetra mean?”

“Four,” they said.

“Good!”  I gestured to the line from Julius Caesar written on my white board, “So, if iambic pentameter is five feet of two syllables, equaling ten syllables total, how many syllables do you think tetrameter would be?”

“Four,” they said.

I slapped my own forehead. “No. Eight,” I said, trying not to sound frustrated over a misunderstood mini-lesson and a stupid test question. “If you see a question on your test asking about tetrameter, count the syllables and look for eight.” I paused to make sure they were listening. “I have no doubt there are exceptions to this rule, and we’ll discuss a few later. On your semester exam, tetrameter means eight syllables.” That was the best I could do aside from saying, “The answer to number 27 is C.”

They nodded their heads up and down, and I tried very hard not to tell my students this question was ridiculous. I might have anyway.

***

Flash forward to exam day. I actively monitored, walking up and down the aisles, when a book on my shelf caught my eye. Sin and Syntax by Constance Hale. I grabbed it. The subtitle—How to Craft Wickedly Effective Prose—called my name. The teacher before me had left it behind.

“For the writer or wannabe, Sin and Syntax is an urgently needed, updated, and hip guide to modern language and writing.” —Jon Katz, author of Geeks

I opened the book and thumbed through the pages about words and sentences and stopped at Part 3—Music. “When you get your grammar down, when you simplify your syntax, you are halfway to mastering the craft of writing,” Hale says. “Appreciate music in prose, and develop your ear for it. Devour novels. Cue up recordings of famous speeches. Fall in love with poetry. Go to the video store and check out all those Shakespeare movies. Read your writing aloud.”

“Nice advice,” I thought and flipped further.

In the last chapter on “Rhythm,” Hale says, “Metric feet can have up to five syllables, but the most common have two or three.” And that’s why a question on tetrameter twists my panties. Tetrameter could be any number of syllables. Stupid. Stupid. Stupid.

I don’t know Richard Lederer, but I think he’s genius.

“As a prose stylist, you don’t really need to memorize the names of metric feet,” Hale says, “but you do need to appreciate their effect….When we listen carefully to our writing and reshape its rhythms to our liking, prose can become music.” She says the verses of the Bible, especially the King James, “are so easily received, remembered, and recited because of their rhythms.”

Hale cites the iambic pentameter of playwright, David Mamet, the rhythms of Winston Churchill and John F. Kennedy, the repetitions of Ernest Hemingway and Tim O’Brien, the musicality of Virginia Woolf and Martin Luther King, Jr. She writes about parallelism and a Jell-O commercial, rap and Grandmaster Flash.

And Hale’s last chapter reminded me of my last MFA class, Topics and Genres. A study of mentor texts with a focus on opening lines. Dr. Boyleston said, “Your story is only as good as your command of the language.” And he wrote Isak Denison’s first sentence from Out of Africa on the whiteboard:

“I had a farm in Africa at the foot of the Ngong Hills.”

Our class discussed. I took notes. The first six words of the novel are iambic, and the “had” emphasizes the past tense conflict. The narrator no longer has the farm. The prepositional phrases, “in Africa at the foot of the Ngong Hills,” reveal a general location—Africa—and a specific location—the Ngong Hills. The repeating anapestic rhythm connects the music of language and beauty of landscape. In this simple sentence, there are only two polysyllabic words. The rest are monosyllabic, which slow you down and lend a sense of gravity. It’s almost Biblical. “The Lord is my shepherd. I shall not want.” This lesson on rhythms was one of my favorites of my MFA at HBU.

And still, who cares if I can identify a dactyl or trochee by name? Uh, not me. Tetrameter. Shrameter. The technicality makes no difference. But the musicality? Now that’s another story.  

‘Twas the Day Before Winter Break

Photo by Tim Mossholder on Pexels.com
‘Twas the day before winter break
And all through the school,
Students and staff awaited 
the upcoming Yule.
 
The seniors were all 
just a bit brain dead.
I gifted them some time 
to get ahead.
 
A Holiday Happening,
a lunchtime talent show.
The kids and their gifts,
My mind did blow.
 
Singers and dancers,
A drumline, too.
A public prom proposal
and subsequent “I do.”
 
A Hallmark start  
to the two-week break
feeling thankful indeed—
make no mistake. 
 
Yet at the final bell, 
I ran for my car with a shout,
"Happy Holidays to All!
Mrs. Byers is out."
So sad I missed the school orchestra concert last night, but I woke up to Dvořák, and the world seemed alright. Peace.