Sometimes even your favourites are jerks...

It's hard not to play favourites sometimes, because we all know that we have them. Hard to have the same rules for everyone. Hard to kick out the student that you know may not come back because he's being a jerk. But a jerk's a jerk, and circumstances are circumstances, and on and on, but...

But I kicked him out. His choice. Participate or go work in the office. Participate or pay the price. He left. Signed out and walked out the door. It's a disappointment. It hurts and it sucks but I know that if I consistently change the rules for him because life is hard and life is a disappointment and life hurts and sucks... because sometimes life walks out the door... well, I know that I've lost everyone else. I know then that I'll lose him too. I'll lose his respect by treating him differently, and once you've lost their respect, they'll never come back.

Respect is earned here. No one gets it free. Especially not some new white teacher. And fair enough. I don't deserve it any more than those who walked before me. And I won't lose it now.

Burning the forest that's already down

They’ve told us that it’s going to snow a number of times… I wasn’t ready to believe them until now. Last time they told us it was still October. Now it’s the middle of November, my snowshoes have arrived; I have a coat, 2 cords of wood, and a spare body in the bed to keep me warm. Wood. We were supposed to get beetle pine from up top – the top of the infamous hill that keeps people away. Don’t know exactly what happened to that plan, but it went awry. Ended up getting old growth salvaged Douglas fir instead. I started counting one of the logs. Got to 286 and got bored. Was probably 2/3 or ¾ of the way through. Some of it is soaked with sap and weighs 3 times as much as it should. Sizzles and pops and crackles and hisses the night away. It’s beautiful to come home to a warm fir-smelling cabin after a day at work. Home feels like home now that Jeremy’s here. Food and warmth and lots of love. We’re going to try and go up, up, up a mountain this weekend to find more snow, lots of snow. That makes me smile.