As much as I love where I work, it really does make me aware of not only how many children are crying out for basic love, but of the circumstances that contribute to a poisonous environment.

• The first grader's MLK assignment posted in the hallway that starts, "I have a dream that my dad would be nice to me."
  
  
• The child who showed up with bruises on his face and told four different people four different stories about how they got there. (Yes, the teacher filed a report with CPS.)
  
  
• The mother who pulled her children out of our Self-Esteem and Social Skills group because her pastor said that what we did was "witchcraft."
  
  
• The teacher whose tone of voice and bitter comments to her students conveys depths of contempt and disgust.
  
  
• The administrator who, when a little boy said that someone had violently shoved him into a wall, told him to not be a tattle-tale.
  

But, well, what can you do but keep trying?

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So as not to leave on a totally depressing note, I wanted to share my amusement that the pictures of Orlando Bloom on the covers of Teen People and GQ last month make him look like a dead ringer for my first husband when he was in high school.

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QotD

How far you go in life depends on your being tender with the young, compassionate with the aged, sympathetic with the striving and tolerant of the weak and strong. Because someday in life you will have been all of these.
— George Washington Carver (1864?-1943)