Well, weather in Cali has been quite different this year than we have had for a few years. Most of the places are out of drought and the lakes are almost full to the brim which is great news because it was looking bleak for awhile. I am from the extended 2020 TOLI group that met on zoom in 2020, 2021, a little in 2022, and now we are here in 2023. I visited New York on my own last year because I had bought some tickets to some musicals that could not be refunded and had an airbnb reservation, so I came anyway and extended my stay at the airbnb, I visited around the same time we are coming to New York this year. I stayed near Central Park.
Who am I? I am an English teacher in Sacramento, CA. I teach tenth grade honors and core, and I have a Creative Writing class. I am almost finished with my 21st year of teaching at my school. I have not really taught too much about the Holocaust this year. My focus has been more on social justice. I usually read The Wave and Night with my students, but this year I may the change to Fahrenheit 451 due to what is happening in many states. Last year I focused on Agents of Change. I bring in spoken word poetry. Last year’s students created an agent of change website for their project. Sadly I will not have time this year due to our idiot district demanding tenth graders to take a practice sbac exam just so they can have incoming data in 11th grade. So stop teaching the last four weeks and give two weeks devoted to testing apathetic teenagers. The bonus is we get to score it. Can you tell my opinion?
In my real life, I have two cats–sadly one is 21 years old and probably making the decision to put her to rest today or this week. My other cat is three years old, and I have a rough collie dog who is 8. I also have four chickens. I used to live in the country but now live in a suburb on a 1/3 of an acre. My 21 year old cat is the last animal I have from the ranch where I grew up. I have a lot of flowers and find that nature brings a lot of peace for me. I also love to do art like watercolor and mixed media. I do have a boyfriend but he works in Oakland/Berkeley area about two hours away from me, so I see him on the weekends. I look forward to meeting my zoom tribe along with the new people to the group.
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Erica Kaufman 
Gatsinzi Basaninyenzi 
lthompson 
SueFletcher 
Klaudia Neufeld 
Lori Menning