Saturday, January 7, 2023

 Saturday, January 7, 2023

   I was supposed to have Mama K's crew at 9 am this morning. Fourth-grade K's teacher and I have been communicating. I saw the results of his iReady Math evaluation before the winter break. I had a session with him every day except for Christmas Eve, Christmas Day, New Year's Eve, and New Year's Day. I covered all the areas where he had done poorly. Mama K never got back to me this morning. I had no idea what had happened. Coming from a different generation, it is inconceivable that someone wouldn't reach out to explain the absence. 

   I was in bad grief today. Abandoning ninth-grade K was hard on me. I don't know how he will deal with it. It may make no difference. Given that he refused to work with me on Tuesday after I lectured him about his need to be less passive and dependent, he may be relieved. I assumed the no-show on Thursday was a repeat of his refusal. He needs someone else. I worked with an eleven-year-old autistic who couldn't speak with a recorded IQ of 75. I taught him how to speak. I worked with a seven-year-old whose speech was unintelligible to his older siblings. I got him to speak and learn excellent word recognition skills. Ninth-grade K is something else entirely. I don't know what his problem is. Whatever it is, it made me uncomfortable. That wasn't good for either of us. With my backing out, he may find someone to help him, or they will finally get an accurate assessment of his capabilities and prepare him for an academically less demanding life path.

   Quitting on ninth-grade K probably will have a bad impact on my relationship with the academic support teacher who recommended me. He probably won't do that again. That makes me sad, too.

    On top of my disappointment with K,  I also had an upsetting experience with a friend that hit me badly. The grief was almost unbearable until I turned my Vipassana skills on it. Then, it became bearable. No, it was almost pleasant. A little like being sick. But I got things done. I finished reading the chapters Shivani had sent me and trimmed another of the overgrown shrubs along the driveway's edge.

   I ordered flight tickets to Honolulu for the twentieth through the twenty-third. I will visit relatives I don't see very often. These are my closest relatives other than my sister and her kids. My mother was an only child, and my father's one brother had no kids- at least none that have shown up on Twenty-Three and Me yet. The young woman's parents currently living in Hawaii are in my generation. Roy is seven years younger than me. His was the first diaper I ever changed. His daughter married a Hawaiian boy she met in San Francisco. He wants to move back here. They're trying it out. She says they're not in a great house but will be here for six months. They have a three-year-old in daycare. Getting him into a program back in San Francisco would be impossible if they were to return in the middle of the year. It's hard enough to get a kid into a good daycare program at any time. Fortunately, both parents can work online.