Tuesday, October 25, 2005

Civil Rights Pioneer Rosa Parks Dies at 92


rosa parks
Originally uploaded by radiospike.
Everybody tried to portray Rosa like she was just tired - like she didn't know what was up when she refused to get off that bus. There were others who refused (like a single mother who was arrested roughly four days before Rosa, who they -being the NAACP - thought would be dragged through the mud for being a single mother) but Mrs. Rosa had what it would take to see the thing through. She worked for the NAACP and was clear on what she was doing. She was smarter than people tried to paint her. Our movement was smarter than just some randomness that just happened because. She was stronger than that. I am sorry to see her spirit go, glad for her to find that rest,and hopes she tells Malcom and Martin we said hello..

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20051025/ap_on_re_us/obit_rosa_parks

Monday, October 24, 2005

Cammy for Holloween


imgp2802
Originally uploaded by raquita.
trhis is my pooh in her holloween outfit.. go ahead and Aww... now you can read my actual entries below... I write like three or four a day.. so have at it...

Alert - protect your License and identity


Renewed License
Originally uploaded by jon|k.
Check for your Driver's License, and remove it! I definitely removed mine. I suggest you all do the same. Now you can see anyone's Driver's License on the Internet, including your own! http://www.license.shorturl.com/ I just searched for mine and there it was...picture and all! Thanks Homeland Security! Go to the web site, and check it out. It's unbelievable!!! Just enter your name, city and state to see if yours is on file. After your license comes on the screen, click the box marked "Please Remove". This will remove it from public viewing, but not from law enforcement. >Please notify all your friends so they can protect themselves, too.

Random thoughts and ramblings...


P1000499
Originally uploaded by mahlonbook.
Amiri Baraka is coming to my area today, I am going and I am taking my child, I want her to become used to seeing this type of greatness, so she will project her self higher automatcially.

I apologise to you guys - my thought haven't been nearly as entertaining as I would like.

Last night I stayed up way too late being domestic and baking - I made a apple pie the size of a half sheet cake and five - 5 - Lasagnas. Fo'real. Then forgot to make my lunch and didn't feel like going through the motions this morning so I'm eating KFC for lunch.. Pray for me. (ha!- kidding -almost..)

Having alot of friend issues. A dear friend thinks I'm mad at tehm - when I'm not. I'm just really disapointed in them. And I'm trying to perserve my sanity. You all know the definition of insanity right? Einstein had his definition of insanity, doing the same thing over and over again, expecting a different result. My friend is trying to drive me insane by asking me for the same advice over and over again - then not taking it and ending up in the same situation. My insanity will be the byprodcut of theirs. Not Cool. And I snapped at them about it, but they wouldn't leave it alone. Kept pusing me - I said I didn't want to hear it but they jsut couldn't leave it alone so.. now they think I'm mad.
(background music - Kanye Golddigger)

you ever love somebody so much you had to stop trying to tell them? Cause they won't hear you - and they can't see exactly why they aren't getting what they want out of life, since they make the same mistakes over and over again.

Friend #2
Is always unavalible when I call to hang out, I think she thinks something unsavory amongst our group - and I'm inclined to agree but why do we have to not hang out?

I'm going to get the baby's pictures taken this week I think - Gotta talk her daddy into it. Get her Holloween costume and Thanksgiving dress documented and I think I'm gonna jump back into scrapping - I finally set up my digital print account so I can get my pages printed.. It'll be cheaper than hanging out amongst the world.

I am writing more poetry lately - having may more thoughts - 13, and sarah you guys are so instrmental in that so please keep writing and posting - I am reading, and writing too.

L8rs

Mood- disconnected
Music - Maroon 5's first album

Sunday, October 23, 2005

Our Growlers moment


New Friends from Growlers
Originally uploaded by Bill Odom.
Okay this was wild.. and shows you where we are going in the world. I have a group of girlfriends, fairly new to me, we call ourselves The Queendom. They are poets and the significant others of several poets I have been friends with for years. SO what is the point of this point you ask?
Well... We go to dinner once a month and this month we went to growlers pub. Local spot not really known for its black population. But we are the Queendom and we don't care and we had a good time - how ever we forgot our camera -five levels of sexness - and no camera. I know travesty,right? so J one of the girls says I'm gonna take on with my camera. and this guy walking by pulls out his camera and takes one too. We notice and I say- "We'll be on flickr by eleven o'clock!"
He laughs and says "Hey I'm on flickr, my name is Bill Odom.", and so I go home look up Bill Odom and mark him as a contact and low and behold what pops up, a picture of the Queendom, taken by cool random white guy and put on a picture sharing program online. We are offically celebrities, only I don't think he knew we were poets and poet wives. So there you go.

Friday, October 14, 2005

What else can I say?


hitler.jpg
Originally uploaded by poetryslam.
gotta love spray can messages that are deeper than any ad agency could come up with

Thursday, October 06, 2005

The Beauty of parenthood....


Cammy looking out on the ocean
Originally uploaded by raquita.
Having Cammy was arguably the best thing that ever happened to me. Looking at her - watching her grow up - gives me the greatest excuses in the world to be young and silly and mommy. I do all kinds of things I didn't do before...

I take bubble baths. With ducks and floating letters in it.

I like the toy department more than I have in easily fifteen years.

I like puzzles and I like to spend time helping her put them together.

I like to spend time doing stuff grownups never get to do -cause we are so busy being... well... grownups.

And I am so greatful for that I want to make sure she has every advantage. I want to raise her to know everything she should know about her womanhood. So good people I have decided to double major - in Elementary and secondary education and preventive psychology. In additon to teaching and educating students I want to evaluate factors in schools or families that cause mental health or learning issues and work to fix them, eliminate them, or modify an environment so those factors don't exist. i.e I want to help little girls and boys learn how to better deal with being a kid. Cause from my memory it wasn't easy. And I was never one to think that just because I went through it that was good enough reason for my kid or any kid to have to go through something. If any thing knowing what they face and how they feel makes me want to stop as much of it as I can.

Where did all this come from you ask? I've been reading and reading and I came across this program called the Ophelia Project. www.opheliaproject.org and it is exactly what I hope to be able to impliment in the curriculum that I teach. Ophelia does soemthign most schools, parents even teachers fail to do and your average student prays someone will do - recognises that bullying isn't as simple as people beleive it to be.
In trying to figure out where I want Cammy to go to school - I figured out this is what I have been looking for - in all the new learning techniques and teaching methods and avoiding the standardised test memory way of teaching I have wanted and found - this was the primary element missing.
I wanted her in an emotionally, physically and socially safer school environment. And even the most expensive montessori schools can't guarentee what they aren't looking for. Relational Aggression is what schools, parents, communities, everyone needs to address in your children from as young as 2. NOW. I see the mistakes I have made in Cammy and have VOWED to correct them. Get the education I need to make sure she has a better opportunity, to be a better woman, a better friend, a better student and react better than I did in those situations. Anyway I need to get outta here and pick up some books, soem on this subject even - my time has started!

Peace...

Wednesday, October 05, 2005

Car Dilemmas, Kal-el, dogma and staying young and foolish

Cars, Gas and the women who love them...


Jerry and I live in one car. Our little three person family has been truly TRULY blessed that we can function this way – and however annoying it is we are able to survive in one car. We have toyed with the idea of buying a second car- but several things have slowed down this idea. The extra car note, gas is THREE dollars a gallon here, Insurance isn’t cheap and gas is $3 a gallon, and then there is the price of gas. Because the car we want isn’t exactly gas friendly. We are SUV people. Did I mention Gas Prices SUCK? Sick of making the space work in a car made for teenagers – I want what all Americans want – I want too much. See inset picture of said machine that causes drool. But I’m saddened that I know automakers can give me what I want with relative ease. They can make a big car that gets 40-50 miles a gallon – I don’t need it to be a speed machine I just want to be able to do sixty five to seventy and not have to stop for gas as soon as I get off the highway, especially at SAY IT WITH ME PEOPLE -- 3 DOLLARS A GALLON. I’d rather that they go with some alternate fuel but that’s like wishing for a winning lotto ticket and not buying one. And because the big boy SUV’s only average 9-19 MPG I won’t be buying one anytime soon. If Nissan knew what was good for it – it would put out the Murano (see gain inset of drrol producing machine ) as a hybrid at the same time it kicks off the Altima Hybrid – they are the same car – the Murano was built on the Altima base so just do’em both and give me mine –fully loaded -so I can make my hubby happy and be responsible to the environment, so my kid will see mommy doesn’t just complain about the state of things – she does her part too. And since both are built in the US, I don’t have to feel bad about buying a foreign car. Until I can buy a car that fills that need I don’t think that I will. And that sucks fat rocks.

You'z not gonna win daddy of the year...
Kal-el, Nick cage named his son – for all constructive purposes after an alien super hero. Named the boy SUPERMAN, for cripes sake. Gave the boy issues for LIFE. He’ll never be able to wear a button down shirt cause bullies will forever be pulling open his shirt to see if the S is there. Nick, your money will not be able to buy your son friends who will not ride him on this. I’m sorry kids can be mean little buggers. Nick Cage – you are a mean little man.

Dogma and other crap - I'm just venting here
I just read a very nifty sentiment from Steve Jobs, dude who started apple, AND PIXAR! (sweet!) He was talking about connecting the dots, loving what you do, and death. Pre-face – he gave a speech at a college graduation click here to read the whole thing – and he really got me to thinking.
Funny how I know exactly what I want to do – but I can’t seem to get there. I look at my self in the mirror and know the woman I want to be- know I can do what it will take to be that woman – but I don’t do it, and I don’t know why. I am less prone to this since I had Cammy but I am still not where I want to be, and I am officially not okay with that.


"If you live each day as if it was your last, someday you'll most certainly be
right." It made an impression on me, and since then, for the past 33 years, I
have looked in the mirror every morning and asked myself: "If today were the
last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today?" And
whenever the answer has been "No" for too many days in a row, I know I need to
change something. --Steve Jobs


So I know I need to change a lot of things. In the very early morning, you ever know God is calling you but you roll over –afraid of what ever he is calling you to or for? Hear that call as crisp as your moms voice calling you for school and roll over and pull the covers up the same way you did then. I’ve been hearing Jonathan Kozol speak (see hubbys blog for links and excerpts and check NPR he was on this morning.) and people discuss his views most of which I agree with, and feel my place is in the school system, teaching and working on the segergation problems in the St.Louis school system. But how do you do that?
Someone told me I was very hard on myself recently, and I can see that – but what do you do when you aren’t living up to your own expectations? When you are tired of saying – this isn’t so bad.. what if it is so bad? What when you don’t feel worthy of the blessings you have? When you know you could be better for the people you love and who love you? What do you do? How do you change the path you’ve set? Part of me wants to say – my focus is now making sure Cammy doesn’t make these mistakes. That not only to we teach her to dream any dream but we teach her to have the drive to achieve them, but a bigger part of me wants to say learn this, Cammy, by watching mommy do this, achieve this goal.

But I don’t know how. Don’t know if I believe I can – for real – for real. Like deep down in the inside, like I can say it out loud but I’m afraid of failure again. My husband will read this and want to discuss this as if there is anything left to say. As if he can convince the parts of me I can’t convince that I can do this. Friends will find all the right things to say, they will come from every angle – Sarah will be compassionate, Tito will be hard ass bourgeoisie sarcastic , Joe will nod and hug me, CoPo will be cool and sarcastic and I will love them all for their words and will hold on to them (so tell me anyway) as I take this step forward, today. I wish this were easier for me – but nothing worth having or doing…. Right?

Anyway Going back to work. Gonna try and write and shake this and move forward….

Goal TEACHING BY AUG 09