As I drove yesterday to go teach my class by noon, I carried thoughts of how my class had run out of paper. The school doesn’t really provide it, the students are supposed to. The student’s parents can never get anything to the classroom on time, nor help their kids get projects done. I hate to be in a classroom without the very basics like pencils and paper, so I drove a different direction for a few minutes in case there was an office supply store down Wilshire Blvd. What I did see, were the food trucks just blocks away on Miracle Mile opposite LAMCA and the Tar Pits, the sunshine, and the Pit Park filled with school kids wandering on field trips.  I for one am a foodie who loves a good find. Not all food trucks are equal, but some do have incredible vision and fusion of fresh flavors to their bites.

Currently in life I am in limbo now as I wait to see if I need to take my calculus class, one more time. I tried to take it at a local junior college to “save money” last spring; had a terrible teacher who told the adults constantly how stupid we all were, and as a result did his best to help us all fail. I dropped out of his class three low-test scores in. This fall I took the course at CSUN, unfortunately, on two accounts: One, approximately only 5 people will pass a calculus I course at any of these schools it seems, meaning those who really want to progress with their degree course will take it two or three times helping to create a shortage of teachers. As a result, I got stuck in the time slot when I could take the course with a professor who is not Ph.d.ed, who comes from a junior college and teaches five courses there, two this semester at CSUN. He was good at teaching alright, but had no time or energy to really help anyone learn the material, nor the energy to care, which maybe is the nature of college. It seems to me that if a person really works hard to try and understand a topic that there should be someone who understands the topic who is working equally hard to teach it. This is not usually the case. 

And so, limbo ensues. I wait to hear if my passing D is a grade I can move on with for this second credential to teach middle school math, or if I will repeat the five days a week of fifty mile drives to CSUN and then to my teaching job, while studying in my spare moments, tutoring others, and visiting a gifted tutor myself.

Which is why before January 23rd , when I will know my mathematical fate, I should to visit my beloved food trucks before work, grab a tasty bite, and bask in some good old sunshine in the parks with the students (not mine) allowed to take field trips to the neat next door museums. Good food and sunshine, two life affirming gifts.