And an interesting thing about me is:

I've been rubbish at blogging lately. If I could write in my blog at school, you'd have read this post on Monday (which I emailed to myself, but have to retype because for some reason blogger never lets me paste anything and I want to MURDER IT):

31 August 2009.

I've invented a new game in the last couple of weeks called how crazy would it be.

The rules are pretty simple. For example, today when I stole three boxes of pencils from the supply closet, I asked myself: how crazy would it be if I stood at my manual pencil sharpener and sharpened pencils for half an hour straight?

But I didn't have an answer. Is that mediocre crazy or creepy crazy? How crazy is it that I insist on having a giant mug of freshly sharpened pencils of equal length on my desk? How crazy will I be when I tell kids they can't use those pencils because they're just for show, that once a pencil is just visibly shorter that I will remove it from the cup and replace it with another?

How crazy is it that I have tape on the floor to align the front desk of teach row and the back desk, so after group work we can easily put them back where they belong? How crazy is it that I can't get any work done in my classroom--nothing, nothing for school-until everything is properly hung and exactly where it needs to go?

The amazing thing is that all three boxes of pencils were pre-sharpened. Holy shit. How crazy is that!

I feel like I have so much to say about the past week and a half, and I probably should have made a list of it all. Note that I decided it is a first-year teaching thing to wonder how crazy you are.

Today I got free pizza.

My classroom has an eye wash. It was two fire extinguishers and a fire blanket and a paper towel holder and concrete walls that make hanging non-paper or laminated posters difficult. Today, in the closet, I found a poster for the "Pulitzer Prizes for Poetry" that ends in 1996. There's a goddamned fly buzzing around in here.

I am overwhelmed. My car has been out of power steering fluid for days, but there is no use putting more in because it leaks out. Have I mentioned my invention idea of a giant car maxi-pad? Put it underneath the car to absorb all the fluids. For the heavy days, with wings.

Last week I lugged things inside this room. I cried the first day. I didn't find an apartment; I'm living in Albertville until October. In Albertville yesterday, I rode my bike past the new high school. That town is not the same town I lived in. The population has doubled. Class sizes have doubled. A new huge school, new schools on every corner, winding paths and new houses. That is not my hometown. It's sort of disheartening. I liked going to school with kids that had been up for a couple of hours before the day began--feeding cows, scooping shit.

Today I had a discussion with a new teacher about weathered teachers, bad attitudes. It could be a lot worse, but we discussed the mental pact that all new teachers must make with themselves: if that becomes me, I have to get out of this. It's so easy for teachers to be critical, to have the right answer. That's our job. And it's so hard to get them to shut the hell up when someone is trying to talk to them. The old cliche, that they make the worst students.

I have no air conditioning in here, and I worry about the freshman the last hour of the day, those who've had gym, those who don't understand that deodorant can be applied more than once a day, rather than just as a shower-substitute.

The only magnetic poetry on my podium reads "beautiful teacher." "Ode to Tomatoes" is taped to the front of my desk.

I have so much to do.

How crazy is that I stay, already, three hours longer than my work day, and that I stay just a little longer to write these things down.

*

Yesterday was more free pizza along with the consolation prize of sitting in on a union meeting. I've not felt more like I'm in a movie--trying to survive as the workin' man being brought down by the man--than when I'm in a union meeting.

I know little about the union. It protects me. It's like teaching insurance in case some kids say I touched them when I didn't. It costs a lot of money. And this year, contract negotiations are going down.

And so the negotiators, different teachers who, I guess, volunteer themselves, meet with school board to talk about how much money teachers will make in the year. What confuses me is that they haven't yet reached a negotiation for this year even though work starts on Tuesday. But I don't ask questions. I just eat pizza and write in my planner and regret not bringing more work to do. Because I'm pretty sure I already know what I'm making this year. Maybe new teachers just start out on old negotiations. Or maybe I'm getting a raise. That'd be pretty nice, but I doubt it, because I've not yet taught one day.

And so, the negotiators talk to the room of teachers about different negotiations, what the board proposes, how much health care would or will go up, how much that affects those who have retired, how there is somewhat of a line drawn between singles and families regarding salary and health insurance. Whatever. This stuff is important, but I can't find myself caring because I can't find myself understanding what the fuck any of it means. I just need to know when and where I can go to the doctor, how much it will cost if (let's be honest when) I need therapy, and how much all of my drugs will cost. That's all I need.

But, of course, there are teachers in the union meeting who need more, who get really, incredibly riled up. Because they've been teaching a long time, and this is important stuff. And, more importantly, it makes sense to them. And so the scene goes as it would if it were scripted:

Numbers on the screen.

Angry hub-ub-hub-ub-hub-ub-hub-ub.

Reassurance from the negotiators that they're still negotiating.

Person hollers from the audience.

People agree with angry comment, hub-ub,hub-ub-hub-ub-hub-ub. And a couple of yeah---yeahs!

Then more and more people standing up in the middle of the conversation to deliver important points:

Well, what about [this]?

Yeah--yeah! Well what ABOUT [this]?

And then a miniature argument and a moment of holy shit when a woman who misconstrues a comment stands up and says yeah, well wait a minute what about this! and then realizes that she has jumped the gun and rescinds. Or she just doesn't want to fight.

And then another comment about what we haven't yet thought about, or how hard we work, or how much other teachers in other districts are making and about how much the principal is making and then more hub-ub-hub-ub-hub-ub and side conversations about personal lives: well my husband--well my daughter--well my friend in another district--

and in the midst of all this independent hub-ub the woman who overreacted earlier--she's really worked up about this--stands up with her thick calves and green cargo shorts and curly mom-hair and puts her fingers to her lips and just whistles while we're all taking a survey about what we should suggest the negotiators negotiate about insurance--and the entire cafeteria looks at her--and she reminds us to think about the retired teachers! We'll be there some day! And they're trying to pit us against each other! I used to be a single and now I'm a family--you'll be a family someday too!

And it's just hot and my plate is empty and I slip out of there. It seems as though there should've been machinery in the room, that we should've been straightening each others blue collars. It's not a bad thing, none of this union stuff is bad, but I feel as though I'm wearing pants that feel quite uncomfortable.

*

And yesterday was the district meeting--the last one before the year--and we sang the fight song, and we gathered in bleachers and took a staff photo, and teachers who've been working in the school for years and years were recognized, and I found myself getting choked up about it for no real reason at all. I didn't know any of the teachers. But there they went when they were called--15 years of service, 25 years, 35 years. Teachers who've been working there since the mid-70s, since before I was born let along before I started school. Why did emotions overwhelm me here? I don't know. The same reason, I suppose, that I accidentally cried when I watched that TLC show about the British ladies who give Americans new wardrobe. I don't cry when I probably should, and I do when I'm sitting in high school bleachers and clapping along to a school song.

(And today, I just kept thinking about all the things in life to get worked up or choked up about. Students, the ones you do reach, the ones you don't, the ones still in Rochester who you wish would somehow stop by your new classroom, the first year of college, the first year of grad school, working too hard, my youth, the fact that I've never gone places I should've gone when I was naive enough to not yet "get" them--I feel like I didn't make enough stupid mistakes in my youth, that I don't have good enough stories to share. Maybe it's because one of the older English teachers was talking about her life--first law school, marriage, living in the big city, traveling to Verona...)

Anyway. There's so much in life to get you all worked up. And then you find that you don't really know anybody in that entire gym, and all of a sudden they're showing the "new teacher video"--the one from last week where you were recorded talking about yourself. And that is being shown to the entire district--four whole schools of strangers. And on that ten-foot-high movie screen in the gym, your nose is so much bigger than you thought.

Let's move back to first person.

When I recorded the video last week, I had to say my name and my job and something interesting about myself. Pretty simple. I had horrible hair that day, and I pretty substantial tan line, and I hate the sound of my voice, which I'm pretty sure makes me sound like a moron instead of someone who has her shit together.

On the video I said my name. And I said that I'm teaching language arts in the high school, in the old science or chemistry room--and so I've written on my syllabus that safety goggles are required. And an interesting thing about me is that for my MFA in Creative Writing I wrote an entire book of poems. Nobody's probably going to read it, but there you go.

And it felt kind of good that the district laughed at my jokes--that the whole gym thought I was funny. That felt okay. But can I say again that I have a giant nose and my face at ten-feet-tall is not at all flattering.

But then I started to laugh (sort of to myself)--after all of the ridiculous embarrassment subsided--because I thought of all the things I could've said on that camera. I mean, the crowd was great and responsive. But what could have I said to just really make them gasp, to really make them start to laugh and then just think: oh my God, I can't believe she said that.

So, imagine eight people going before me. Their introductions are pretty standard: Hi my name is Ted, and I teach science, and an interesting thing about me is that I like cats. And then a head shot of someone else: Hi, my name is Mary, and I teach 6th grade English, and an interesting thing about me is that I am addicted to ice cream. And so on.

And then my name on the screen in green comic sans font, and then the camera on my giant face. (And imagine all of these deliveries as serious and deadpan as you can):

Hi, my name is Jean, and I teach high school English, and an interesting thing about is that I just plain don't like Chinese people.

What would an entire gym of teachers even do with that? What would they do. Or other takes:

...and an interesting thing about me is that I've never been raped, but I secretly wish I had.

...and an interesting thing about me is that in a former life I was Shakespeare's dog.

...and an interesting thing about me is that I tried to kill myself three times last week.

...and an interesting thing about me is that I hunt domestic dogs--in people's backyards--for sport.

...and an interesting thing about me is that I shave my own ass.

You know. Say these things just to see what happens. Just to hear the gasp.

Also, we watched an "inspirational" video about a boy who was born with a disability, and in one of the parts of the video his dad looked exactly like Hitler but without the mustache. So, again, there I was in the gym, watching this movie that was making other people cry, emotional songs playing and a boy in a wheelchair doing sport-things, but I choked on a laugh because you weren't there and I couldn't say: Oh my God, this kid's dad was the Fuhrer. I just wanted to say, during the home movie clips of this boy's life--in black and white, even--hey, what is Hitler doing there! It was like a clip from Forrest Gump. But of a kid in a wheelchair and is Hitler dad.

Where are you people when these things happen.

*

So, school starts on Tuesday. I'm ready, I suppose, more organized than I have ever been in my life, thanks to the organizational neuroses passed down to me from my intern coach last year--and I'm scared that I find myself more like him than I find myself like myself, but I'm sure I'll outgrow those things as I move through the year. I've been officially assigned to chaperon the snowball dance in winter. I've scored on the most amazing things that I can't believe people don't want anymore--English term posters, laminated, from 1979--a poster with a giant rainbow and drawing of Nora from A Doll's House that just says WOMEN'S LIBERATION. (Seriously, I would hang these things in my house. And I'll post pictures when I can.) A British Literature map without a date--but that I'm guessing is early 60s and made of cloth. It is truly amazing.

I met parents at open house a couple of days ago. I'm scared about doing my best. I'm scared about all of things people keep putting on my desk--remember this, and this, and this. But I'm confident. I'm ready. This is all mine.