One year ago.
I'm in Minneapolis, sitting at Caribou on 46th street and Nicollet. The same Caribou I was at, probably, a year ago. Definitely the same coffee shop I spent most of October 2007 in, after losing the job. The same coffee shop where someone drove too close to the Intrepid and ripped the side mirror off.
It's weird to be here. It feels kind of good, because of some of those goals I've reached since last year and three days.
I love you, my blog. How else would I remind myself of that initial excitement I had when I started this program, when I saw little logos for the school district on papers and felt like I was doing the right thing. How else would I remind myself that I forget about the good times. That when I wasn't teaching, all I wanted was to be teaching. How else would I remember? Oh, blog. Let's have a hug, eh?
I went to Roadrunner records right as I got into town, drove 'round the old hood for awhile. Roadrunner has made clearance browsing difficult; the store is now half the size and the 50-centers are on the floor. You have to get down on your knees and dig for the records. Not easy. I wasn't patient enough. But I paid $4 for some Sonny and Cher and $2 for some Buddy Holly & the Crickets and $5 for some Beach Boys live, including "Sloop John B." It might be 30 degrees outside in late March, for my spring break, but I just need a record store and a coffee shop and an agenda--an agenda, remember when you didn't have one, Jeano? Remember when you lived in the cube and became so bored with yourself that sometimes you burped out loud and didn't even realize it?--and I am okay. I am okay. I have to read two novels in two days and then plan 9 weeks of school for two classes, but I'm challenged and creative and learning. I'm not putting numbers into Peoplesoft. I might be worried about a job next year, but it's a job I want. Not some random posting. I might have 60 freshman persuasive papers to grade this week, but Mr. O said to do 10 a day, and I'll listen to him. I'll do 10 a day and then I'll never have to sit down and do 30 at once.
Jeano, you asshole. Your life could be so much worse. What the fuck is wrong with you.
I talked to the Good Doctor today, heard his voice for the first time in months. He said, who is this? I said, what? He said, Who is this, my caller ID doesn't work. I said, Jean. I said, what are you doing Tuesday? And he said, what time? And I said, because I don't know, at all, Do you have a job? And the question, out loud, the thought of me asking him, this person who I used to know so well. Now I don't know where he lives. I don't know where he works. I said, do you have a job? And he and I laughed into the phone, on both of our ends for a good two minutes and then arranged some plans, somehow, although I don't remember or know what they are.
Oh, man. What is this weird day. I went to school with a hangover, with a packed suitcase in my car, with grades to finish, with distractions all over the place--t-shirts to order online, calanders to review or make, papers to pack into a bag, Mr. O printing off documents and giving them to me, witty retorts back and forth, repression of emotions about next year--but I don't want to leave Century! I want to have a job here. I want to stay in this English department--listening to the teachers plan the fall semester I won't be here for, hallways without students on their first day of spring break, job searches to perform, gifts to get out of my car, grade reports to print, questions that I don't even have about these units I'm planning.
And suddenly I'm in Minneapolis and I don't remember the drive up here. Suddenly I'm in the old neighborhood and smelling familiar air and I can't tell if it's spring or fall or if I'm beginning something or ending something.
Same shit, different outfit.
Friday, March 27, 2009
Monday, March 23, 2009
reasons to start smoking.
There are many. 
1) First of all, smoking while wearing a golf glove? Doesn't get much fucking cooler than that.
2) Look. I need something to take the edge off, okay? Because if I have to sit through another day like today, another day of NOBODY HAS ANY MONEY & YOU'RE NOT GETTING A JOB and Ms. P, I don't have my rough draft with me because blah blah blah and learning content and anxiety applying for jobs while at the same time worrying about the job fair and this evil SEP portfolio and worrying about where I'm gonna live in five months and where I'm going to make any money and the bank calling about your student loan, Ms. P and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and.
3) I like cigs in the rain. I like how the smoke warms up my throat.
4) I need something to do during spring break. Do you know how much my spring break is going to fucking suck ass? Most people go somewhere warm, or they at least take a day off, or they at least have someone to look forward to. I have 2 novels to plan for fourth quarter, one which I haven't even read and the other which I read for the first time a couple of months ago. I am going home because I can't stand Elgin. But I can't stand home, either. I've agreed to meet the Good Doctor for coffee, and I've done a good job at avoiding that emotional roller coaster for the last 8 months. Can I stand it? My emotional self can't fucking take it! I'll cave! I'll take responsiblity for everything that went wrong with that relationship and I'll beg for forgiveness. I'm so weak. I'm so weak.
5) I want to look cool.
6) I know that cigarettes are expensive. This is bad because I don't have any money. Unfortunately, this problem becomes circular because not having money stresses me out, and I've reached such a magnitude of stress that the only thing I can do is take the edge off somehow, by smoking.
7) Smoking replaces eating. That also helps with #6 and all the money I spend on foodstuffs.
8) I'll have another reason to drive my car with the window down--so the smoke can get out, of course!
9) I'll be able to say, someday--well, I overcame something. I quit smoking. Good for me.
10) I'll die sooner, which means less time grading papers.
Holy shit, I'm having a bad fucking day. Holy shit, what a fucking surprise.
Saturday, March 21, 2009
a dangerous glimpse of the future.
Friday. School gets out at 3:03. Students slam lockers hard as though putting a period at the end of a week-long sentence, race through the hallways, then through the parking lot. It's raining and chilly, but it's Friday, and they can't leave soon enough.
Teachers too. The teachers leave too. Except for Jean. Jean stays. She lives in Elgin, and it's raining, and she thinks it's warm in the school and she has so much work to do. She stays. Even Mr. O leaves, and he practically lives here. Jean stays. She logs onto the computer and looks up some content area information and writes an assignment for the juniors that she finds vague and unsatisfying.
It's late. Everyone is out in Rochester, doing Friday things, and Jean is sitting in the classroom watching the rain out the window. At least the classroom has windows. Two even. It's raining on both sides of the room. The trees are still bare; it is the first day of spring.
After an hour, she hears a vacuum outside the room. The custodians are cleaning. One walks into the room; Jean hears the key struggle for a good three seconds before he enters, and he starts to vacuum without seeing her in the corner, typing at the computer. He carries the vacuum on his back, as though it's a jetpack or he's dressed up as a Ghostbuster for Halloween or just for fun because--how else make it through a Friday. He sees her after a minute, he hasn't heard her typing. He is startled, but smiles. He finishes his vacuuming; Jean and the janitor continue on with their jobs as though there is no time to break even for eye contact.
He leaves. Five minutes later, a second custodian comes in. He struggles with the key, too, and then he wheels a giant garbage can into the room. He doesn't look over, doesn't hear Jean typing or clicking her mouse on more Wikipedia links (Wikipedia is the source of Jean's innate hypocrisy).
He turns off the light.
He takes the brown garbage can and dumps it into his gray garbage can, leaving the plastic bag in the small garbage with the gum still stuck to the sides. He leaves.
*
...He turns off the light? Yesterday was such a day of self-pity. Raining, the first day of spring. Grocery shopping for one with no money, pissed at the shitty grocery store and their high prices, buying frozen food because I know I don't have the energy to cook real food. Or food for anyone. Not for myself? Why not just eat cereal? I can't plan meals, I can't buy fresh food because I don't eat it in time, before it goes slimy and squishy and soggy.
Nobody to go home to, not even a house where I feel comfortable. Plenty of books to start, though. Working late, wishing I had the brain power to work longer, because there is nothing else for me to do. Rainy days are for wine and games and movies and running from car to destination while screaming about the cold rain to a companion. Rainy days are for slow dancing. Not for going to bed at 8:00 after falling asleep while reading an Updike story that I didn't even particularly get. Not for that. Not for self-pity. Not for visions of the future, of a life where I become so insignificant that someone turns off the lights on me, that I just leave the lights off because I don't have the energy to turn them back on.
I'm going to die alone. Oh my God.
What the fuck. I miss you.
Teachers too. The teachers leave too. Except for Jean. Jean stays. She lives in Elgin, and it's raining, and she thinks it's warm in the school and she has so much work to do. She stays. Even Mr. O leaves, and he practically lives here. Jean stays. She logs onto the computer and looks up some content area information and writes an assignment for the juniors that she finds vague and unsatisfying.
It's late. Everyone is out in Rochester, doing Friday things, and Jean is sitting in the classroom watching the rain out the window. At least the classroom has windows. Two even. It's raining on both sides of the room. The trees are still bare; it is the first day of spring.
After an hour, she hears a vacuum outside the room. The custodians are cleaning. One walks into the room; Jean hears the key struggle for a good three seconds before he enters, and he starts to vacuum without seeing her in the corner, typing at the computer. He carries the vacuum on his back, as though it's a jetpack or he's dressed up as a Ghostbuster for Halloween or just for fun because--how else make it through a Friday. He sees her after a minute, he hasn't heard her typing. He is startled, but smiles. He finishes his vacuuming; Jean and the janitor continue on with their jobs as though there is no time to break even for eye contact.
He leaves. Five minutes later, a second custodian comes in. He struggles with the key, too, and then he wheels a giant garbage can into the room. He doesn't look over, doesn't hear Jean typing or clicking her mouse on more Wikipedia links (Wikipedia is the source of Jean's innate hypocrisy).
He turns off the light.
He takes the brown garbage can and dumps it into his gray garbage can, leaving the plastic bag in the small garbage with the gum still stuck to the sides. He leaves.
*
...He turns off the light? Yesterday was such a day of self-pity. Raining, the first day of spring. Grocery shopping for one with no money, pissed at the shitty grocery store and their high prices, buying frozen food because I know I don't have the energy to cook real food. Or food for anyone. Not for myself? Why not just eat cereal? I can't plan meals, I can't buy fresh food because I don't eat it in time, before it goes slimy and squishy and soggy.
Nobody to go home to, not even a house where I feel comfortable. Plenty of books to start, though. Working late, wishing I had the brain power to work longer, because there is nothing else for me to do. Rainy days are for wine and games and movies and running from car to destination while screaming about the cold rain to a companion. Rainy days are for slow dancing. Not for going to bed at 8:00 after falling asleep while reading an Updike story that I didn't even particularly get. Not for that. Not for self-pity. Not for visions of the future, of a life where I become so insignificant that someone turns off the lights on me, that I just leave the lights off because I don't have the energy to turn them back on.
I'm going to die alone. Oh my God.
What the fuck. I miss you.
Tuesday, March 17, 2009
Jean's Hierarchy of Needs (& then something offensive)
The days seem to go back and forth, from good to bad, high to low, warm to warm-but-it-doesn't-matter-because-I'm-too-sad. For instance, last night I ate free pizza and went home and ate a bowl of ice cream with sleeping pill sprinkles (really!) and I felt full and slept soundly; today I woke up to a mouse scratching around in my room, got dressed on top of my bed, and then looked at my bank account. (Which has confirmed that I'm once again in panic mode; the second student loan for spring has officially "run out" and I am utterly and completely fucked, and I'm so sick of being here, so, so, so sick of being here.)
And I've been thinking about how none of these are being met. Maslow argues that we must meet the bottom needs before we can move up this triangle (like a ladder, without being able to skip rungs). According to Maslow, I'm quite stuck in the green mode.
So, fuck you, today.
I've been thinking about Maslow all morning. Maslow, the guy who came up with the hierarchy of needs. Observe:
And I've been thinking about how none of these are being met. Maslow argues that we must meet the bottom needs before we can move up this triangle (like a ladder, without being able to skip rungs). According to Maslow, I'm quite stuck in the green mode.But observe my own triangle of needs, according to, well, me:
I'm severely lacking in the lowest rung, money. Also, as there is a mouse (likely more than one mouse) in my bedroom, I can't even progress up the hierarchy once I have money. Of course, here the irony lies: I consistently have diet soda and really cool sunglasses (often at the same time, even). But I would argue that I cannot truly enjoy those two things without money or without having "no fucking mice in my bedroom." Understand? Good.
***
The Praxis is over and done, the third Praxis, three of three. The last test was a compilation of multiple choice and mostly essay questions that relied on the cirumstance of a "typical high school classroom."
I might get in trouble by ETS, the cock-sucking money-takers (pay for my test scores in hard copy? Fuck you) if I repeat the circumstances of the questions here, but here's a summary of what a test question and my answer might look like:
Mr. Yamaguchi is a Biology teacher who works with a class of honors 8th graders in an urban middle school. His class is composed of mostly boys and only three girls. While an honors class, his students are at different levels of ability.
*
MR. YAMAGUCHI'S LESSON PLAN, DAY #1
Introduce Fertilization--Film Look Who's Talking
Ask Students about prior knowledge of fertilization; re: zygote
Geneology: Have students complete Punnett Squares
Discussion: Should we be able to choose baby characteristics?
*
ESSAY QUESTION #1:
Look at Mr. Yamaguchi's lesson plan for day #1. Identify TWO WAYS that Mr. Yamaguchi could modify his lesson plan to create a higher challenge for his Honors students. Describe how these ways will help his students achieve a higher level of learning in his class.
*
ANSWER, FROM JEAN
There are a number of ways that Mr. Yamaguchi could modify his lesson plan to present more of a challenge to his Honors Biology students. First of all, I would recommend that he invite his daughter, Kristi Yamaguchi, to his Biology class to speak to his students. Almost all times, a guest speaker makes class more interesting. Even though students don't know who she is because she's--what, like 40 now?--she could just pretend she's Michelle Kwan. They're both Asian anyway. Oh, and she could even do an interpretive dance regarding the fertilization of the egg. That would definitely make kids think, because once they can APPLY, as indicated in Bloom's Taxonomy, can they then really connect to the material.
I also noticed that Mr. Yamaguchi has only three girls in his class. It might be interesting to do an experiment where all of the guys in the class learn their genes and then pretend to mate with all of the girls. What males in the class, combined with the girls, would create the most likely superior race? If there are any non-white students in the class, then they don't need to participate because it wouldn't create a superior race; likely there aren't though, because it's an Honors biology class. If by chance a non-white student did get into this class, that student could either A) create a Punnett square to see where his parents went wrong, or B) create an ancestoral tree to determine if any parts of him are white.
Again, I doubt there are any retards in his class, but if there are, they might be able to contribute to the final discussion. While his discussion on whether parents should be able to choose genetic traits is exciting, it would be more realistic if the students could consider an actual person in front of them. Mr. Yamaguchi could call the retard to the front of the class, have him or her stand there, while the rest of the students discuss whether this child should have been aborted had his or her parents had known that he or she would be retarded. If there are no retards available in Honors Biology, then Mr. Yamaguchi could rent one for the hour from the Special Ed room. I'm pretty sure you just have to fill out a form or something, and then put down a deposit. But they might charge a late fee if you hold the student for too long.
(Please, for the love of God, understand that this is satire.)
Wednesday, March 11, 2009
THANK-GOD-IT'S-NOT-YESTERDAY MAGENTA
A big change in the last 24. Mr. O saved the day, as did a conversation with Jenny. Two McSweeney's joke books came in the mail, one with a unicorn on the front, the other with a smoking chicken. Ripped the page of yesterday out of the coloring book of life, and what have you. Mailed an application for a real job, printed on real resume paper. Ate a good sandwich for lunch, bought a friend a giant cookie.
Remember when I went off on transcripts awhile ago, when I was working at Capella? I was looking at my transcripts today before sending them off to the job app, and I was getting mad at myself for the shitty grades in my undergrad. And for the classes I don't remember taking. What a waste of money, eh? I don't rememeber a goddamn thing about Comparative Political Systems. I know dick about Women's Health Issues, other that when my roommate throws away my no-baby pills it pisses me off and I have to dig through the garbage to find them next to lettuce so brown it's wet.
Sat in on a high school history class today. Makes me want to teach high school history, makes me mad I know nothing about Teddy Roosevelt. That's right, Christina! Good ole Teddy. He hated being called Teddy, you know. He wrestled Japanese wrestlers in the White House library, you know. He skinny dipped, with his whole cabinet, in the Potomac, you know. He was a pioneer conservationist and founded a lot of National Parks (but not Yellowstone) you know. But he wasn't a preservationist, because he liked to hunt. He started government policies about food safety, you know. You know, I wish we'd all been in high school together, but like if we are how we are right now. I just want to do a project on presidents with all of you and then present it to a class and get an A on it. I get to be group leader.
I just want to sit in a room and have people tell me cool shit all day. Is that too much to ask? Tell me cool shit, and I will listen to you.
I was in the mood, earlier, to write an Open Letter to a future employer, but maybe I'll put it off because I can. It's just that I have so much to say about being a teacher lately, about second-guessing choices for the first time yesterday, about students and other teachers and people telling me how to run my class, and pep fests that fuck up the whole day.
Here's how it will start:
[Dear Future Employer,
It is with enthusiasm that I am applying for this Future job. Well, you know what I mean, Future employer. I like your space suit, by the way, and your state-of-the-art moon boots--but I guess you need those when you live on the moon, huh?! Man, the future looks so cool! I can't wait to work with your Future district!
Anyway, while I was hiding and crying under my desk third hour yesterday...]
And so on.
Remember when I went off on transcripts awhile ago, when I was working at Capella? I was looking at my transcripts today before sending them off to the job app, and I was getting mad at myself for the shitty grades in my undergrad. And for the classes I don't remember taking. What a waste of money, eh? I don't rememeber a goddamn thing about Comparative Political Systems. I know dick about Women's Health Issues, other that when my roommate throws away my no-baby pills it pisses me off and I have to dig through the garbage to find them next to lettuce so brown it's wet.
Sat in on a high school history class today. Makes me want to teach high school history, makes me mad I know nothing about Teddy Roosevelt. That's right, Christina! Good ole Teddy. He hated being called Teddy, you know. He wrestled Japanese wrestlers in the White House library, you know. He skinny dipped, with his whole cabinet, in the Potomac, you know. He was a pioneer conservationist and founded a lot of National Parks (but not Yellowstone) you know. But he wasn't a preservationist, because he liked to hunt. He started government policies about food safety, you know. You know, I wish we'd all been in high school together, but like if we are how we are right now. I just want to do a project on presidents with all of you and then present it to a class and get an A on it. I get to be group leader.
I just want to sit in a room and have people tell me cool shit all day. Is that too much to ask? Tell me cool shit, and I will listen to you.
I was in the mood, earlier, to write an Open Letter to a future employer, but maybe I'll put it off because I can. It's just that I have so much to say about being a teacher lately, about second-guessing choices for the first time yesterday, about students and other teachers and people telling me how to run my class, and pep fests that fuck up the whole day.
Here's how it will start:
[Dear Future Employer,
It is with enthusiasm that I am applying for this Future job. Well, you know what I mean, Future employer. I like your space suit, by the way, and your state-of-the-art moon boots--but I guess you need those when you live on the moon, huh?! Man, the future looks so cool! I can't wait to work with your Future district!
Anyway, while I was hiding and crying under my desk third hour yesterday...]
And so on.
Tuesday, March 10, 2009
SUICIDAL GRAY
Probably one of my favorite "funny things" ever is when people rename crayons with ridiculous and sometimes offensive color names.
I should've know that when I dreamt about tornadoes eating the heads off people last night that it wasn't worth getting up today. And I know that suicidal gray is a depressing name for a crayon, but that's what it has been in Rochester for the last months. One good day Friday, running outside in a t-shirt, a fuzzy caterpillar on the trail, inching across, but the rest of the days have been a suicidal gray. The fog so dense the last two mornings I can barely see 5 feet in front of the car. I thought I saw a ghost; it was a girl waiting for her bus. My own car lights blind me--it's like shining a flashlight into a mirror.
I am having a very, very bad day. Somebody has taken suicidal gray and scribbled it all over my life, and I'm just left with a dull, broken crayon. It is a bad day.
I should've know that when I dreamt about tornadoes eating the heads off people last night that it wasn't worth getting up today. And I know that suicidal gray is a depressing name for a crayon, but that's what it has been in Rochester for the last months. One good day Friday, running outside in a t-shirt, a fuzzy caterpillar on the trail, inching across, but the rest of the days have been a suicidal gray. The fog so dense the last two mornings I can barely see 5 feet in front of the car. I thought I saw a ghost; it was a girl waiting for her bus. My own car lights blind me--it's like shining a flashlight into a mirror.
I am having a very, very bad day. Somebody has taken suicidal gray and scribbled it all over my life, and I'm just left with a dull, broken crayon. It is a bad day.
Sunday, March 8, 2009
FART, TEST
I gave a nonfiction test to the frosh on Friday, terms and whatnot. Short answer tests make the room quiet, eerie quiet, save for the scratching of pencils which sound like the mice that used to run around in the Highland attic.
And during second hour, near the end of test time, there were two--two--separate cases of blatant test flatulence. Neither of them were from me. I was sitting at the table in front of the room in typical teacher fashion, grading papers, and to the left I heard a poof of a fart like a maladjust on a leather couch. I didn't look up, I couldn't without laughing. Pretended not to hear it, which is tough when there is only pencil scratching and farts in the room with 32 other people.
And 5 minutes later, from the back of the room, another fart. But this one was quick, like a pop. And there was giggling. Again, I kept my head down. But, really? It wasn't even lunch yet and these kids were farting away. Is it that hard to hold it in? If it was you, and obviously you, wouldn't you just die?
Farty freshman and their fart test.
And during second hour, near the end of test time, there were two--two--separate cases of blatant test flatulence. Neither of them were from me. I was sitting at the table in front of the room in typical teacher fashion, grading papers, and to the left I heard a poof of a fart like a maladjust on a leather couch. I didn't look up, I couldn't without laughing. Pretended not to hear it, which is tough when there is only pencil scratching and farts in the room with 32 other people.
And 5 minutes later, from the back of the room, another fart. But this one was quick, like a pop. And there was giggling. Again, I kept my head down. But, really? It wasn't even lunch yet and these kids were farting away. Is it that hard to hold it in? If it was you, and obviously you, wouldn't you just die?
Farty freshman and their fart test.
Thursday, March 5, 2009
Take a time out for a write-it-out.
I blogged on Monday, huh? It seems like it's been longer since then. Probably because this week sucks a giant dick, withered and pink and soft.
It's March, huh? The week started off slow, it did. Cold, windy. Yesterday was good, but too windy to convince myself to pull the reflective running tights over the solid calves and still-fat thighs. Instead I slept it off, slept it all off, and off and off. A four hour nap, two hours of grading papers, and back to bed.
I've decided that Elgin is inhaling my soul like a heavy puff on a glass pipe; it tries to inhale it so bad that it literally swallows after breathing in to make sure it goes down, fills the lungs and the stomach. It might be 40 today, but winter is still killing me. The house has been wearing down on me since everyone left (or, I suppose it was before, it's just now that I notice). The paint cans on the floor, my inability to clean because why bother because it'll never look clean anyway because there are cans of paint on the floor. The plastic on the windows makes the landscape outside look colder than it is, covered in two sheets of ice instead of just one. Yet, the bugs are already setting up home as though summer is around the corner instead of spring. The Asian beetles, the moths, the flies.
Surviving in the refrigerator. I've decided that much of my lack of enthusiasm for any day is simply because I wake up in a refrigerator every morning. I throw off the covers, the electric blanket, and I'm inside a Frigedaire. I walk on the glass shelves of the kitchen floor. I pull my bra out of a freezer and put it on, the clothes out of the closet as though I'm pulling ingredients from the drawer. Except I have to put these clothes on my body. Except it's 50 degrees in the Elgin house, and my body shivers so hard it hurts, shivers so hard I age another year every time I wake up. Shivers so hard I feel as though I put on thousands of miles of wear, like the Intrepid.
The Intrepid is dying, the cancer is worse. Dad rotated the tires when I was home last weekend, and they're off balance so I shake like a rig whenever I hit 35-40 mph. She bucks when any moisture gets in the engine, she still starts hard and sometimes needs a kick to the gas in order to start. My darling Intrepid. The check engine light has been on for two years. Please don't die. I'm not ready to let you go yet.
Today: for my nonfiction/issues in education unit, the students and I are looking at a variety of articles that relate to the high school experience. Day one was the importance of "being cool," and image. Day two was issues with America's education system. Day three, today, we're talking about bullies. We read an article about girl bullies in school and cyber-bullying.
And. Well. We know what bullies are like, what bullies do, how they ruin your life forever, how they just get off on having power and until you can stop that need you won't stop them. But a girl in class shared a story today--the entire school was against her, knocked out her teeth, even--and I don't think I've been so disgusted with humanity in my life. I can see the bullies in my class. I know who they are. They take light of everything I'm telling them, ignore the discussion, make jokes when we're done discussing it. But because I can't go off in class as much as I want to, I can say here that kids are horrific. Yesterday a couple of students told me that they're spit on every day from the balcony. Gobs of saliva and mucous in their hair. Seriously. I have to find a way to remember the adolescent mind to wrap myself around this again. Because the digust I have for kids who walk these hallways, who come to school everyday with the sense that they'll just destroy any child they want to--I can't deal with that without more of an understanding. Petitions to "hate" someone based on one small thing about her or nothing at all. Really. People do this. How can it be so easy to destroy someone, and how can it happen so often.
Think about the energy spent. Think about where it could go, how one could, I don't know--study for a test instead of plotting a way to spread a rumor about someone in school.If you think about it, we all have the power to destory someone. It's just that we have the human decency and the common sense not to do it.
It's March, huh? The week started off slow, it did. Cold, windy. Yesterday was good, but too windy to convince myself to pull the reflective running tights over the solid calves and still-fat thighs. Instead I slept it off, slept it all off, and off and off. A four hour nap, two hours of grading papers, and back to bed.
I've decided that Elgin is inhaling my soul like a heavy puff on a glass pipe; it tries to inhale it so bad that it literally swallows after breathing in to make sure it goes down, fills the lungs and the stomach. It might be 40 today, but winter is still killing me. The house has been wearing down on me since everyone left (or, I suppose it was before, it's just now that I notice). The paint cans on the floor, my inability to clean because why bother because it'll never look clean anyway because there are cans of paint on the floor. The plastic on the windows makes the landscape outside look colder than it is, covered in two sheets of ice instead of just one. Yet, the bugs are already setting up home as though summer is around the corner instead of spring. The Asian beetles, the moths, the flies.
Surviving in the refrigerator. I've decided that much of my lack of enthusiasm for any day is simply because I wake up in a refrigerator every morning. I throw off the covers, the electric blanket, and I'm inside a Frigedaire. I walk on the glass shelves of the kitchen floor. I pull my bra out of a freezer and put it on, the clothes out of the closet as though I'm pulling ingredients from the drawer. Except I have to put these clothes on my body. Except it's 50 degrees in the Elgin house, and my body shivers so hard it hurts, shivers so hard I age another year every time I wake up. Shivers so hard I feel as though I put on thousands of miles of wear, like the Intrepid.
The Intrepid is dying, the cancer is worse. Dad rotated the tires when I was home last weekend, and they're off balance so I shake like a rig whenever I hit 35-40 mph. She bucks when any moisture gets in the engine, she still starts hard and sometimes needs a kick to the gas in order to start. My darling Intrepid. The check engine light has been on for two years. Please don't die. I'm not ready to let you go yet.
Today: for my nonfiction/issues in education unit, the students and I are looking at a variety of articles that relate to the high school experience. Day one was the importance of "being cool," and image. Day two was issues with America's education system. Day three, today, we're talking about bullies. We read an article about girl bullies in school and cyber-bullying.
And. Well. We know what bullies are like, what bullies do, how they ruin your life forever, how they just get off on having power and until you can stop that need you won't stop them. But a girl in class shared a story today--the entire school was against her, knocked out her teeth, even--and I don't think I've been so disgusted with humanity in my life. I can see the bullies in my class. I know who they are. They take light of everything I'm telling them, ignore the discussion, make jokes when we're done discussing it. But because I can't go off in class as much as I want to, I can say here that kids are horrific. Yesterday a couple of students told me that they're spit on every day from the balcony. Gobs of saliva and mucous in their hair. Seriously. I have to find a way to remember the adolescent mind to wrap myself around this again. Because the digust I have for kids who walk these hallways, who come to school everyday with the sense that they'll just destroy any child they want to--I can't deal with that without more of an understanding. Petitions to "hate" someone based on one small thing about her or nothing at all. Really. People do this. How can it be so easy to destroy someone, and how can it happen so often.
Think about the energy spent. Think about where it could go, how one could, I don't know--study for a test instead of plotting a way to spread a rumor about someone in school.If you think about it, we all have the power to destory someone. It's just that we have the human decency and the common sense not to do it.
Monday, March 2, 2009
hmph.
Teaching, I have found, carries with it an air of irritability like none I've ever seen. In this, I mean that sometimes it drives me fucking nuts.
I have trouble placing blame on students. This is good and this is bad. There should be a balance between what they do and what I do that leads to the chaos of class, but it all comes back to me. I absorb all of the little breaths of misdoings like air into a giant balloon. A student texts in class (puffs air into Ms. P) they didn't laugh at the funny joke I made (puffs air and spit into Ms. P) a handful of them were gone and all approach me seconds before the bell rings with questions that prevent me from starting class on time (puff, puff, puff, big inhale, puff) they take forever to calm down (puff) I told them nine times to raise their hands without talking (puff, puff, puff). But it turns out I'm a really flexible balloon. I don't burst, ever, but the air from all their stinky high school rectangle pizza breaths just eats at my rubber balloon skin. My balloon skin heaves as though it's breathing on its own. And it breathes and breathes and breathes and fills me with more pressure from the inside and then Mr. O says, are you going freak show today? And I don't even know what that means. I don't even know why I'm irrirtable anymore. But I tell him I'm fine and that's a big fucking lie and we all know it's a big fucking lie.
Is it because Dingleberry's still living at home, even though I called it--I fucking called it so bad--that he'd be living there past the 1 February deadline? And did I not--did I fucking not--call it that he would lose his job, get fired, and then my folks wouldn't be able to kick him out because he was unemployed and unable to support himself.
I'm so good sometimes it hurts. It really, really hurts.
So, I went home expecting him to be gone, but nobody told me he wasn't gone, and then I had to deal with his ugly mug all weekend. Plus, Travis has become the smelly kid whose grades are falling, quite reminiscent of fucking Dingleberry, and I can do nothing but (in this instance) but all of the blame on Dingleberry. Well, a little on the folks, too. The smelly kid. The smelly kid. Although, I do have to laugh at the side comment my dad yelled to him downstairs from upstairs: You gotta shower everyday, Travis, goddammit, when you're going through all those changes like that.
All those changes indeed.
Is it the jobs I'm going freak show over, is it the grad school homework, is it the students, is it every little lesson, is it the big lessons, is it the students, is it that I'm scared that I have to leave, is it that I want to run away, is it that I'm not cut out for this teaching thing like I thought I might be because the stuff that I'm good at doesn't matter as much as the stuff that makes me go freak show, is it because I don't feel like I've improved at all in the past, like three months, but instead fallen into a teacher pit that I can't crawl out of? I haven't gotten any better. I take classes, and I learn and learn, but instead of applying it, maybe I get a little more freaked out a little more stressed, a little more irritable. And the same things go wrong with every lesson and it's hard to write letters that say nice things about yourself when you hate yourself everyday even though you're doing what you love because you realize that you don't do it as good as you want to.
The last assignment was bad, I'm taking all the blame, puff puff. They pressure me into ending class three minutes early during 8th hour and I give in, puff puff.
Is it the weather, is it Elgin, is it Rochester, is it that I'm a selfish asshole, is it that I need lots of medicating drugs that make sleep come, is it that I'm not running enough, is it that I have 60 papers in my queue that I don't give two fucks about grading right now?
What is it. What makes me want to scream today.
I have trouble placing blame on students. This is good and this is bad. There should be a balance between what they do and what I do that leads to the chaos of class, but it all comes back to me. I absorb all of the little breaths of misdoings like air into a giant balloon. A student texts in class (puffs air into Ms. P) they didn't laugh at the funny joke I made (puffs air and spit into Ms. P) a handful of them were gone and all approach me seconds before the bell rings with questions that prevent me from starting class on time (puff, puff, puff, big inhale, puff) they take forever to calm down (puff) I told them nine times to raise their hands without talking (puff, puff, puff). But it turns out I'm a really flexible balloon. I don't burst, ever, but the air from all their stinky high school rectangle pizza breaths just eats at my rubber balloon skin. My balloon skin heaves as though it's breathing on its own. And it breathes and breathes and breathes and fills me with more pressure from the inside and then Mr. O says, are you going freak show today? And I don't even know what that means. I don't even know why I'm irrirtable anymore. But I tell him I'm fine and that's a big fucking lie and we all know it's a big fucking lie.
Is it because Dingleberry's still living at home, even though I called it--I fucking called it so bad--that he'd be living there past the 1 February deadline? And did I not--did I fucking not--call it that he would lose his job, get fired, and then my folks wouldn't be able to kick him out because he was unemployed and unable to support himself.
I'm so good sometimes it hurts. It really, really hurts.
So, I went home expecting him to be gone, but nobody told me he wasn't gone, and then I had to deal with his ugly mug all weekend. Plus, Travis has become the smelly kid whose grades are falling, quite reminiscent of fucking Dingleberry, and I can do nothing but (in this instance) but all of the blame on Dingleberry. Well, a little on the folks, too. The smelly kid. The smelly kid. Although, I do have to laugh at the side comment my dad yelled to him downstairs from upstairs: You gotta shower everyday, Travis, goddammit, when you're going through all those changes like that.
All those changes indeed.
Is it the jobs I'm going freak show over, is it the grad school homework, is it the students, is it every little lesson, is it the big lessons, is it the students, is it that I'm scared that I have to leave, is it that I want to run away, is it that I'm not cut out for this teaching thing like I thought I might be because the stuff that I'm good at doesn't matter as much as the stuff that makes me go freak show, is it because I don't feel like I've improved at all in the past, like three months, but instead fallen into a teacher pit that I can't crawl out of? I haven't gotten any better. I take classes, and I learn and learn, but instead of applying it, maybe I get a little more freaked out a little more stressed, a little more irritable. And the same things go wrong with every lesson and it's hard to write letters that say nice things about yourself when you hate yourself everyday even though you're doing what you love because you realize that you don't do it as good as you want to.
The last assignment was bad, I'm taking all the blame, puff puff. They pressure me into ending class three minutes early during 8th hour and I give in, puff puff.
Is it the weather, is it Elgin, is it Rochester, is it that I'm a selfish asshole, is it that I need lots of medicating drugs that make sleep come, is it that I'm not running enough, is it that I have 60 papers in my queue that I don't give two fucks about grading right now?
What is it. What makes me want to scream today.
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