School has been a rough bag this week.

I have been sick all week. I took off Monday to sleep but I have continued to be tired and irritable all week long. School is not fun when the health meter is below 100%. I am very glad tomorrow is Friday. However there were notable highlights from the week. My boy K… has been on black for 10 days running. This is huge since most of his days were spent irritating others and everything around him. For the first time in innumerable days C… stayed on black…and he did it again today. His usual modus operandi is to bark, growl, and make a wide variety of noises that should only be accessible in a zoo. And lastly, art club is awesome. We are painting sculptures. They are made with wood bases, wire frames and stockings. The stocking is sealed with a hardener made from glue and paint which also makes the surface opaque. Once fully coated the structures can be painted. See below.

12 weeks left.

This week has been chaotic. We are at the end of our sixth week of this nine-week period. We are rapidly approaching the next big school benchmark…spring break. This time of the year is often compared with the October doldrums just not as severe. I am not experiencing doldrums, I am filled with a sense of exuberant psychosis. I see 12 weeks of Delta employment stretched out in front of me. We are throttling full speed ahead. I don’t think this combustion and scattering of life’s pieces is an anomaly. I expect unbridled excitement until the end of the year.

This week has been characterized by:

- A return from Chicago.
- K… asking for a squeeze and a head butt upon entering the room.
- Lots of ranting and raving about the size of our brains.
- A legitimate push towards centers.
- The beginning of state test prep… dun, dun, dun…
- A day of singing about lines, points and rays (this was my official administrative observation day).
- A concert in Oxford leading to 3 hours of sleep on the couch in the living room, the only warm room in my house. Followed by a night of 11 hours of sleep on the couch and now a night of four hours of sleep. This might be contributing to the discombobulation.
- The premier meeting of art club was a roaring success. The kids are very excited. In their words referencing our projects, “That’s cold!”
- Moves being made towards starting and after school game club.
- Acceptance of my summer job.
- The purchase of a snowboard. It’s like a ticket to four months in the Rockies next year.


Rrraaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhh!!!

It was an exhausting, exhilarating, and refreshing trip.

G… had his Northwestern Law School interview this past Friday at 10am. We left Mississippi at 7pm on Thursday and arrived in Chicago at 6am on Friday. We thought that MS was chilly during the winter. Confused were we. The thirty degrees we thought was cold did not compare to the minus whatever it was in Chicago. We stayed with some friends and cooked a huge breakfast upon arrival. G… showered and paced preparing for his interview; I crashed on the couch for a handful of hours.

We ate Indian food, saw some live jazz, walked around downtown and along the lake front, went to the aquarium, and ate some deep dish.

The pivotal moment of the trip took place while we were sitting at the Green Mill jazz club, apparently an old hang out of Al Capone. I was intermittently dozing off due to the bizarre sleep schedule I was experiencing, but otherwise I was actively listening and watching these five musicians wail on their instruments making them sing and speak in unconventional ways. As they improvised, whipped and turned sound over and under I was caught in a trance. I got lost in the idea of passions and interests. I left the club and Chicago mentally refreshed and prepared to tackle the future, that large expanse of unknown. Since college, or for the first time in three years, I have no plan.

The future once again is an unpainted canvas and I am unafraid of the unknown, in fact I am excited. I know that I cannot compromise my passions and interests for cash and prestige. To be happy I must find a career that satisfies the convergence of my interests or at least propagates the attainment of these interests. Eighty hours a week in an office is not going to accomplish this goal, neither is making six figures when earning the six figures takes up too much of the time needed to participate in the things I love doing. This is what ran through my mind as the musicians created beauty out of a seemingly uncoordinated clatter of sounds. I believe that the seemingly uncoordinated path I will choose will create a picture of beauty and while not immediately recognizable, upon reflection I believe an agreeable landscape will have been painted upon that canvas.

We left Chicago at 9pm on Saturday after devouring the meanest deep dish in town. We arrived in Shelby, MS at 8am Sunday morning. Yaaaawwwwwn! Very tired, I slept from 9am-3pm and now am trying to groove back into reality. 20 plus hours of time in the car during a 60-hour period was cleansing. I feel good. Four more weeks until spring break.