The Grand Duchy

30 June 2009

What have you done today to make you feel proud?

So back Santa Rosa. Having a lovely time. This weekend was spent in San Francisco at Pride 2009. Whoa. So many good stories. Some of them can be found in my Facebook photo album entitled, "You miss your old familiar friends." I guess the best thing to do now is make a list of favorites.
1. Free jello shots, $2 PBR's, and $3 Margaritas in the Tenderloin.
2. Meeting Warren Albert Wilke III... 30 years in the future.
3. Craziness in The Castro.
4. Being homeless on Market St.
5. Making friends by sharing whiskey.
6. Meeting the Regina George to my Gretchen Wieners.
7. Seeing those friends we made the next day. We were wearing the exact same outfits we had on the night before. Obviously they were not.
8. Celebrating love and life in the home of the Revolution. What a beautiful weekend filled with fabulous fun and fabulous people.

25 June 2009

The Way You Make Me Feel

I really cannot believe that the King is gone. I mean the King of Pop. It is a crazy time right now. Farrah Fawcett too? And Ed McMahon. Wow.

It has been an altogether strange day. Work was really stressful. BOO. I gave my thirty days notice for my apartment. Au revoir 3315 Petersburg Ct.

However, the fact that I am going back to the Bay Area this weekend is getting me through it all. Last weekend I took a shuttle to SF to visit old friends and new in the Bay Area. We had a fabulous time, full of fabulous food, and fabulous people. It will be great to go back. Unfortunately Erica will not be around this weekend, but I do not have work next week so I am pretty sure I am just going to take a vacay. And relax and L-O-V-E every single minute of it! Yee-uh!

17 June 2009

School's Out for Summer

Oh man I have been meaning to write about the last day of school for so long.
Last Friday was a really beautiful day at Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Academy. There was a really nice moment in the staff room during lunch where we all just kind of hanging out and enjoying one anothers company. One of the 5th grade teachers was telling me a story about one of her students that was telling her about his future plans of being a wedding planner. "Imagine white doves being let go, and fireworks. And I'm talking big fireworks." It was just so fun! This was all brought on by the class watching A Cinderella Story.
In the afternoon we put on our own little version of the play Cinderella. Everyone looked so amazing in their costumes. This group of kids I had worked with all year looking a little taller and little more grown up. It was a really special thing. I realized then just how much I would miss this group of Fourth graders, whom I had come to consider my own little brothers and sisters. It was a year of learning and I could tell that they were not ready to move on from our wonderful little Fourth grade class. Even my favorite little guy that had a tough year and had the mouth of a sailor became quiet at the end of the day and I could tell that he too was going feel a little sadness when the bell rang at 2:40. We had our rough patches. The fights, swearing, head lice, and other incidents, but we were all in it together. I will always think back fondly on the students I worked with this year. I hope that they will do the same.

07 June 2009

Life is Beautiful

So this week Ms Mazzuca's fourth grade class had a surprise party for me. It was called Mr. Brian Day. There were smoothies and we watched Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory. It was so wonderful. The class made cards for me. It was probably the greatest thing that has happened ever. I thought I would share with you all some of the my favorite quotations from the cards:

"You are the first Americar I now. I the other schools never had won like you. The Best"

"tankyou Mrs. Brain for haiping us in or work and I like you better because you are so good teacher for use and thankyou for abriting and we will mes you berry much"

"...We start reading chapter books. Then after you tought me I loved chapter books.Then when
I went to room 4 what I don't understand of my work you always help me.
Finally, Mr. Brain ned to stop saying more nice thing abou you because you are a great mincord. But I will end this card by discribing yor name
Bright
Respectful
Intallegent
Alert
Nice"

A lovely drawing of me and a student. The student's word bubble says, "could you help me Brian" The drawing of me has big curly hair and I am holding a cup that has an arrow pointing towards it that says, "Starbucks" Because some mornings Mr. Brian stops at Starbucks on the way to school.

"Brian all of us love you because you help us on our fluency and a lot more stuff. We love you."

Another drawing that says "BRIAN Is Cool" I have orange spiky hair wearing sunglasses, and a shirt that says "Brian Rocks!"

Another picture of me with sunglasses, I've never worn sunglasses to school, this time with blond hair. The card says "Brian is the best Thank you Brian Like for reals!"

"Brian I want to thank you much you are a good helper and also I want to thank you because you help Ms. Mazzuca and us. Then Brian you are a good person with everybody... Mr. Brian this is a car for you I hope you like it. I like how ya are."

04 June 2009

9 to 5

I need you all's opinion on something. Although we have been in the workplace a short amount of time I feel like I need some more insight into this problem I am currently having at my work site.

One of my four AmeriCorps team members has falsified her time sheets. So here is the issue, lets get all the facts. Yesterday at our monthly meeting, instead of handing out print outs of our time sheets, our boss simply asked who wanted to know how many hours they had worked. This was done in an effort to save paper. One of my coworkers asked for her hour count to date. After hearing the number I was surprised to find that this young woman had logged more hours than the three other AmeriCorps members at our site. Now this is surprising for two reasons, number one she missed essentially a month of work. I talked to the program director in the fall when she was coming in for an hour or two each day and then leaving early. The matter was supposedly handled and she started coming to work again. The second reason has to do with her behavior over the past months. The absenteeism has reared its head again. She comes in late in the morning and then leaves early every afternoon. Our contract is til four and she has been leaving at 2:40 when school ends.

So there is absolutely no way that she has logged more hours than three other people who are at school from 8 to 4 everday. While the three of us are very present at the site, she spends her day in one room and there are only two people that actually know when she comes and goes, those people being her cooperating teacher and herself. She does not sign in the office in the morning and none of the other teachers know her or if she is there everyday.

Our last problem comes in the form of the falsified documents. Someone at the school site has to sign her time sheets. I am not sure who signs her time sheets but obviously no one can actually truly know how many hours she logs on a given day. So the program director sees the endorsement of someone at the site and believes that she has actually worked the hours she has logged.

My dilemna lies herein, how do I address this? Do I simply do nothing? Should I talk to my program supervisor? I was planning on just sending her an e-mail and that would be the end of it. I simply cannot sit back and let this happen. The school is being cheated out of a good program. I am also being selfish in that I am like 30 hours behind and I am going to try to scramble to gather some extra hours any way possible. It just sickens me to think that she will get off without any sort of punishment or negative repersuccions. People have said that she won't get very much out of the program, which is true. Or that karma will come back and get her, which I am like I dunno how much of that I believe. I just know that I cannot sit back and keep my mouth shut. What do you all think my best options are? Should I keep my mouth shut or fight for what is right?