The Good and the Bad

I had a rough week. A parent came in this week and screamed at me in front of my class. Not cool. I won't go into details since the cause of her frustration is a delicate issue concerning her son. She was highly irate and crying, however, and I just happened to be caught in the middle. Though I knew I was not the cause of her outburst, it startled me nonetheless and scared many of my kids. One of the hardest parts about being a teacher is seeing a student (and his family in this case) going through some emotional stuff and realizing there is nothing you can do about it.

On the bright side, my fellow teachers really showed their solidarity in helping me alleviate the situation. Immediately Jenni (the P4 teacher) found an administrator to retrieve the parent and others have been encouraging me to file a verbal abuse complaint against the parent through the union. I won't but it is nice to know all these people have my back. Additionally, my Cameron went home and talked to his parents about the incident. They just so happen to be best friends with Louise and Rich. So Cami's parents called Louise telling her I had a bad day and to take me out for drinks. What a nice gesture. One of my kids even wrote me a lovely card saying how he was so sad that I was yelled at by someone so mean and it made him upset that I might be upset.

And though the whole ordeal exhausted me, I was really proud with how calm I remained the entire time. I managed to tell my kids to continue working quietly and move the parent to the hallway without missing a beat. She didn't let me get a word in edgewise but, frankly, there wasn't much for me to say. So I patiently listened to her until she ran out of steam and stormed off. Her son, at this point, was also in tears but I would be too if I saw my mom acting the way this parent did.

So by Friday, I was ready for a break and just vegged out when I got home. Saturday I went for what I thought was going to be a simple hike with a woman I met through the local exchange club (she went to Australia a few years back). It turned out to be a hike up a mountain (not literally since the "hill" was 100 meters short of mountain status). OMG. I have not worked out seriously in a few months, don't have real hiking pants or walking sticks, and definitely was not prepared to make this trip in ice and 10 inches of snow. I kept thinking to myself "don't fall, don't hurt your shoulder again, keep breathing." It was very pretty and actually a nice trek but certainly not what I thought I was signing on for. After an hour and half of hiking uphill just to get to the base of Ben Vrackie (feel free to check it out online), we stopped for lunch. I felt like I was slowing down the group- not because I physically could not keep pace but because I was so convinced at any moment I was going to slip on the ice (or fall through to my knee - which did happen about 50 times) and really hurt myself so I walked very deliberately. Hiking in the snow probably could be fun under the right conditions and sets of clothing but we had neither. Luckily, it did start to snow and fog settled in before we started the more vertical climb of the jr. mountain (really imagine a mountain - that's what it looked like. I'll get pictures posted soon) so the group decided we would simply head back to the pub. Phew...

As predicted, however, the walk back was even worse as far as slipping and sliding. Miraculously, I never once fell. But I have definitely learned that I am waiting until the spring thaw before going out "hill walking" again. I hope someday soon, I will start trusting the slowly returning strength in my shoulder but that day is not today (or yesterday for that matter). I was glad my body didn't mind the exertion (except for some soreness today), however, and it gives me hope that getting back in shape won't be as traumatic as I think it will be. But I did make new friends who will obviously challenge me.

I ended the day with a nice soak in the tub, another trip to see Avatar (this time with Louise), and finally chatting until 1 with Lou and Rich while enjoying a nice glass of red wine. I feel much better about this coming week - Burn's Day tomorrow! - and hope I don't have more parents come yell at me. Wish me luck!

Check out pictures at http://picasaweb.google.com/mue711

Avatar - An Opinion

I hate Titanic. More than that, I resent it. It is a beauty queen - tailor made to answer the questions correctly and look stunning while doing so. It has amazing special effects, great star power, a fair plot line, tons of drama, award winning music, blah, blah blah... Heck, it even put of my favorite groups, Gaelic Storm, on the map (Rose and Jack dancing scene). As soon as it started breaking box office records (leaving some of my favorites in blockbuster dust) I realized everyone was being hoodwinked by this pretty girl. Titanic as a movie was a neat spectacle but really isn't a great movie (to me). And when it took home the Best Picture Oscar (away from the far more deserving L.A. Confidential), well, as you can tell I am still not over that slap to face over ten years later. What I hate most about this movie, however, is that I will watch it when it is on, I will cry when the string quartet continues to play amidst the panic on the decks, and I still get excited when the computer simulation explains to the science teacher in me the physics surrounding the ship's Arctic plummet. Even worse, for many of you at least, I love "My Heart Will Go On." It's a guilty pleasure.

You need to understand the strength of my distaste towards Titanic to fully grasp my take on Avatar. James Cameron, for those not obsessed with movies, has not directed tons of movies. In fact, I would gander that most of you have seen at least half of the movies he has under his belt: The Abyss (just rewatched recently - good fun), Terminator 1 & 2, Aliens, True Lies (come on, so much fun!), and even Aliens of the Deep (IMAX documentary that we watch in school with our kids). And Titanic and Avatar, obviously. So I am not entirely against James Cameron's movies. In fact, I would highly recommend each one of these (from the first list) to pretty much anyone (except my mother who has a "strict" "not more than 5 dead people" rule). But I liked these movies before I really knew who James Cameron was and before the Titanic resentment set in. Since Titanic, I have had a vendetta out for James Cameron.

So when Avatar - the most expensive movie ever made - started popping up in articles in movie mags about a year or so ago, I wasn't sure what to think. Everyone loved Titanic because, boy, weren't those amazing special effects! Was this going to be another one of those movies where it is really mediocre but because he spent more money than anyone has EVER spent on a movie before, will everyone think it is amazing? When Avatar started receiving rather tepid reviews, I was a bit gleeful. It's horrible to find joy in someone else's potential downfall but, again, I am not over the whole Titanic thing and certainly did not want Avatar to feed into Cameron's already inflated ego (that's for another blog, but trust me, he has one *cough*Kingoftheworldoscarspeech*cough*). But I did want to see it. I mean, I'm still a movie person through and through and it was supposed to be visually amazing. So I went to see it last week with Gillian's cousin Kerenza and friend Dawn.

It was so much fun. I mean really a lot of fun to watch. Though 2 1/2 hours long, you don't feel it. This movie wrapped me up in the new world of Pandora and kept me fascinated the entire time. I have heard many reviews blast the movie for its simplistic and predictable plot. "It's Dances with Wolves on an alien planet." Quite true. In fact, the plot was so conventional that in the first 10 minutes you already know who is going to fall in love, who is going to "change sides", who is the bad guy, who is going to probably die, etc. Ultimately, I think this is one of the more brilliant things Cameron did with the movie - intentional or not. By keeping most, not all, but most of the movie fairly simple, the audience could really sink into this new world - so visually stunning that I wouldn't have wanted a complex super-plot marring my enjoyment of it. I even found myself thinking throughout the movie, "Oh, we're not at the end yet because XY and Z still need to happen and Bob from copying needs to do such and such and Lucy hasn't noticed this or that..." And it made me happy to be able to keep pace with the filmmakers like that. I have watched too many movies where I am working so hard to keep track of characters, plot twists, etc. that I miss out on movie part of the movie. You could not read this story in a book and see Pandora the way it is meant to look. Ugh...now I'm just gushing and repeating. Moving on...

**I realize I was mad at Titanic for being nothing more than a special effects beauty queen so this may sound a bit hypocritical but there was something magical about Avatar that Titanic just missed for me. **

As for Cameron, I am still amazed at the depth of his creativity. Very few people in the world would even dream up some of the things (whether military helicoptery things, 6-legged creatures of the forest, large blue people that you can control while laying in a pod) but even fewer would then have the skill to bring all of that together in a terribly realistic way. I can't believe the movie was almost 80% special effects. There's part of me that even wonders if this should be considered as Best Animated Feature because most of it is (though you wouldn't know to look at it).

Yet beyond this embarrassingly mushy review, it was not my favorite movie of the year. So far, that honor is reserved for District 9. I watched it on the plane ride back to Scotland on a 5 inch TV and it took me into its drama like no other film in 2009. (still need to see some like Up in the Air and The Hurt Locker though). Other favorites of the year include Up, Star Trek, and The Hangover (what a great victory for that movie last night - made my day). And despite my obvious Avatar enthusiasm, I was a little sad for Kathryn Bigelow and The Hurt Locker. This is probably the closest a woman has come to potentially winning Best Director Oscar and I'm so nervous that Cameron's Golden Globes win will hurt her chances. Sigh. This is what poor Annette Benning must feel like regarding Hilary Swank. The two years she would have been a shoe-in, Hilary Swank swooped in with amazing performances. So close...

I'm sure you'll hear from me come Oscar time but feel free to give your own two-cents here as well. I am not going to be offended for those who found Avatar less than thrilling but would love hear other opinions. I also apologize for those who wanted to know more about the movie in this breakdown - my brother throws a fit if anyone ever tells him anything about a movie that he is about to watch. So I am trying to respect (as much as you can in a review) the wishes of my readers to not divulge too much information. Feel free to call or email if you want a complete breakdown of plot, cast, etc. I'm always happy to oblige.

Oh, the Weather Outside...

I can't remember the last time I have been surrounded by so much snow for such a long period of time! On the 17th of December, we had quite the flurry of snowfall here in Fife. So much so that there was concern that we would not be in school on the 18th - the last day of school for the kids before break. Maybe I'm alone in this sentiment but I think that is one of the worst possible days to have a snow day. I mean, I would have enjoyed sleeping in and having a longer holiday but that last day before break is usually so much fun to spend with kids. It's movie and popcorn day. It's craft and puzzle day. It's clean up the room for when we get back day. Fortunately, the December 17th snow was enough to provide a pretty landscape but not enough to cancel school...unlike today.

Since the 17th, I've lived in a marshmallow world. On Saturday the 19th, I did some last minute Christmas shopping in Edinburgh. During a walk from the Royal Mile (by the castle) down to Princes Street (this may mean nothing to many of you), there was a 3 minute period where it started to spritz, then rain heavily, then sleet, then become blizzard-like conditions. In 3 MINUTES all this happened! I had 1/4 of an inch of snow in my purse by the time I made it into the craft fair I was heading to. It was incredibly festive and made me feel like I was in the middle of the song Silver Bells. The area around Princes Street is the main shopping district in Edinburgh so gaily colored Christmas decorations adorned the streets and shop windows. People were bustling about with their holiday purchases. Christmas music may even have been playing (or that could have been me just singing to myself). I loved it.

There was a fair level of panic upon leaving Scotland that I would run into major holiday travel issues. DC was dealing with the biggest snowfall it's received in years. Dulles and National Airports were closed for the better part of the weekend (I was flying in on a Monday). The Amsterdam Airport (a major hub for international flights in Europe) was closed and had to bring in cots for all the passengers forced to wait there for a few days. Could I make it through without incident? Honestly...no. My flight landed 10 whole minutes late at Dulles. How inconvenient. Seriously though, it was my Christmas miracle. Plus, I left behind only a few inches of snow for over a foot of snow in NoVa (Northern Virginia). We were going to have a White Christmas! (only a 7% chance of that in VA)

My wonderful friends dug out my car so I could use it while home. As it turned out, the icy and snow-covered roads were nothing compared to dealing with the traffic issues I so gratefully left behind when I came to Scotland. Despite the torrential downpour of rain on Christmas Day, the snow stuck it out until I left on the 29th. Having enjoyed a snowy few weeks, I headed back to Scotland where I was assured that snow never lasted more than a few hours on the ground. Not only had the snow from before Christmas not melted but Mother Nature dropped another 8 inches or so on Boxing Day. I came back to Scotland with more snow than I left in the US!

My friend Christine had come in the same day I landed to spend the New Year with me. She, unfortunately, did run into weather related delays and instead of arriving at 7:30 AM in Glasgow (I was getting in at 10:30 in Edinburgh the same day so needless to say there already was a complication in us meeting up), she arrived around 3:00 instead. It was better for us meeting up but also meant Christine had been traveling for about 24 hours to get to me. Fingers crossed that heading out tomorrow is significantly less eventful for her.

Since Christine's arrival, the snow has not stopped (nor has the hail!). On Saturday the 2nd alone, we had to have help pushing the car out of our parking spot at Rosslyn Chapel, and pushing it up the hill heading out of the Chapel parking lot (others were having the same troubles too - it wasn't just me). This was before we ended up parked (literally car turned off) for 45 minutes on the M90 (major highway - like 95) due to an accident on the Forth Bridge while so much hail came down that when it stopped, you couldn't see any of the tire marks on the highway. 20 minutes after we started moving, the car slipped so we ended up perpendicular to the flow of traffic on the highway (luckily only going about 20 mph). How we did not hit another car is beyond me (might have something to do with Christine's words of encouragement, "You're doing great. We're going to be fine. You're straightening out. You can do it." She now admits that part of her wanted to react a lot more panicked than that, "We're all going to die!"). It was one of the most stressful drives I've ever taken.

When school started again on Monday (for teachers, Tuesday for kids), there was a general grumbling from all the teachers about why we were open. The hill leading up to school had (still has) about 6 inches of ice packed down and is impassible for most cars. The school parking lot has not been touched - not that we can get to it anyway. Aside from the major roads in the area, plows have not so much as glanced at any of the residential or backroads. Fife has been on the national BBC news for having some of the worst weather/roads. We are out of grit (not sand, not salt but grit) and are having to borrow some from the government because our roads are so bad. Let's not even get started on the sidewalks. (90% of our kids walk to school) So when over 20 schools including the local high school was cancelled yesterday, a very unhappy and frustrated staff showed up to welcome back our kids. Miraculously, my kids were pretty good. Considering my students, this was a miracle.

My travel woes, unfortunately, continued as my car (stupidly parked on a hill, I admit) would not move after school yesterday. I finally got it over the snow hump (after sliding into the car behind me twice) only to not make it up the hill. So I decide to do a K-turn. To make a long story short (too late!), it took three nice townsmen to push my car up the hill enough backwards to allow me to complete the turn.

When it started to snow last night on the way to dinner at Louise's, you have never seen anyone so happy! But it wasn't until 8:45 this morning that we got the official word that we were cancelled today (but I had already called in that I wasn't going in - along with about 5 other teachers from what I understand). I almost think the head teachers in the area are playing chicken with each other as to who can hold out the longest keeping their school open. When the news people are reporting on all the accidents in the area, the national news has reported that we are in major trouble due to the lack of grit (not that it does much - hello, where is the salt?), we are experiencing record low temperatures that are going to last for the next 5 days, the sidewalks kids are using for school are sheets of ice, and none of the roads that people actually live on have seen a plow, WHY is there even discussion about keeping schools open?!

So no school today. And even better, it's been a great excuse to break in my new wellies.

By the way, I'm started to get my pictures put up online. They are not in order and some of my adventures are not up yet but I'm getting there. You should be able to check them out at:

http://picasaweb.google.com/mue711