hey everybody this is what a public school staff meeting is like

It's 7:00 in the morning. The teachers have 900 things to do before school. They gather in a small room that is either way too hot or way too cold, and there are just enough chairs.

Did I mention that the teachers have 900 things to do?

The meeting starts with an award for a teacher who has done something right, along with a comment about how we do it for the kids, for the kids. Then there is a handout about new procedures, something that has changed, something in procedure or time that has to change. Or something about a change in the schedule, or some handout about test scores having gone up or down.

Let's just say this: the handout has something to do with how the teacher's life has to change, how the teacher likely has to rearrange a schedule or add something to the schedule that she has no time for. Sometimes you have to take time out of class to discuss for ten minutes. Sometimes you have to lose the kids for one hour of the day.

Or, if it's last week, sometimes you have to make up for the computer person that has resigned. Because they're not replacing her, and all the work that she did--fixing the copier, making computers not-be-shitty when your kids use the computer lab, scheduling--all that stuff--is now the responsibility of the teachers.

The next thing that happens in the meeting is that the teachers are pissed.

The next thing that happens is they start to raise hands and all share stories and reasons (rightfully so, of course) that it's ridiculous that someone who leaves, whose position isn't filled (and thus freeing up district money) has her work now placed on the teachers. (This is what other schools do! the administration says.) Who now have to clean up the labs, and check things about computers that they don't know anything about, and check computer stations for the "mouse balls" that students go ahead and steal sometimes.

The next thing that happens is that the bell rings and the disgruntled teachers, leaving with more work than they came with, go teach.

*
What else.

Today I went for a run that I didn't want to go on, and I decided that I might try to set a goal of two miles a day. I mean, I was running three in the summer and that was when I didn't have anything else to do rather than bitch about how broke I was. So, even though 2 miles seems almost like a waste because it's just a short run, considering all of the running around I do during the day, it'll be about the same as the summer, no? And I lost a little bit of weight this summer. Maybe if it's just two, I can do it, eh? But it's hard, it's hard. To put on the running clothes after a long day of school, to get out and move when I just want to come home and fucking collapse.

What else.

Lots of thoughts about education. Teenagers. How to be a teacher. Anxiety. What I can change, and what I can't. I wish I had more student stories to share. I need to take more notes, write it all down. They're doing crazy shit; I just force myself to forget about it when I leave.

What else.

Car shopping this weekend, perhaps.

What else. Oh, what else. It feels like it should be March instead of October. It feels that I've learned months worth of lessons in these last couple of weeks. But it's still October? Really? Just October? Are you sure Christmas didn't pass by already? Can I have a couple weeks off or something? Meh.

An Xism in a song:

Shoot me in the face! Shoot me in the face! Hi-ho-the-dae-ri-o, shoot me in the face.

The cheese stands alone, the cheese stands alone! Shoot the fucker in the face, the cheese stands alone.

Uh.

I wish I had time to really blog about how amazing the weekend was, how good, how wonderful it was to travel my way over Green Bay on a cool, rainy fall day with Darren asleep in the passenger seat with a scarf over his face like a beauty mask. How last Wednesday I was at home in Albertville, not doing a thing, waiting for the long weekend to start. How the weekend was ideal, how I drank margaritas the first night and then slept so well, how it was wonderful to have Jenny waking me up again, just like all summer. How I looked forward to Christina and Liz and Ben getting there, running to the street to see them, the hugs. Then the rehearsal dinner, reading letters in the bathroom that forced my face to heat up with emotion. Sweet brandy old fashioneds and the bartender hating my young, naive self for ordering it wrong--twice. The wedding day, our hair, the gorgeous Jenny bride who can through the biggest party I've ever seen. Talking to RT, dancing and dancing and drinking.

And the day after, the ride home, the hard, hard Sunday. Although, a funny breakfast with friends. Talks of mixing water and Sprite and all that.

I took Monday off. A mental health day to breathe. And then I worked for about 10 hours that day. And then Tuesday, Tuesday. Cleaning up after the sub, making up for the lost day. 14 hour days, 14 hour days. Laundry? No time? Hanging pictures of you on the wall? No time. My house is still a mess, but I can't get myself to clean the bastard. At school until 6:00 each night lesson planning, then coming home to grade papers for three hours. Yesterday during a meeting I was volunteered to take notes and report back to the principal--a task that added an hour to my day. And that's actually so much. This is no life.

But. I wonder now, how I'll look back at these blogs. I only complain about this first year. I should note that school is exhausting but I still have moments. There are no longer horrific problems with my 3rd class and their discipline issues. They still talk too much, but I absolutely consider the class a victory. I talked to a kid about bullying today, told him, the drama queen he is, that he no longer gets to "act" in class, and he handled it maturely. Good for him. I brought the students candy bars today to thank them for their work. I nailed the Romeo & Juliet lesson, showing that the play is much easier the second time around. How much easier it will be the third time, how much easier life will be once I settle into the position I want and then grow every year. How much faster I'll get on my feet. My favorite students are a set of twins. One of them makes me laugh everyday, writes, Goody Prokott, why do you use big words like "overture and dialogue" on our homework assignments, and I'd written back, because I like to sound smart! The other of the red-headed twins visits me everyday and plays little pranks.

Today I freaked out about grammar. I don't like teaching it, because I don't know it. And then, I wonder what the point is--do I really need to remind my students about what simple predicates are, what helping verbs are? Can't we instead use that time to talk about basic writing skills, practice voice or organization in writing. Because I don't even know, really, the difference between linking and helping verbs (well, I do now) and I think I can write just fine. Pretty sure I have a Master's degree in writing.

And this, after yesterday, when we had to meet in groups before school to discuss that we should be teaching skills and not content, to discuss that most employers don't have significant problems with people that mess up on grammar just a bit, but more problems with people who can't express themselves in writing, who can't be specific or stop writing in abstractions. So why do I have to teach this? Can't we do miniature lessons on commas, instead? Or dangling modifiers? That's important to know. That helps you become a better writer. Not parts of speech. Nope. Not compound predicates or direct objects. That's how you start to become a great writer. That's why it's elementary school stuff, writing basic sentences. High school should be fine tuning. High school should be finding voice. Tackling bigger projects. Understanding the writing process. [steps down from soap box]

But I don't have a choice. I'm anxious today. I think about grammar, and then I think about The Crucible, and then I think about the books that I haven't taught, and how I will teach next year if I have a new curriculum, I think, then, about all the activities that Phil did once and how clever they were, and why don't I have them all in a folder, and will I ever create activities so thorough and wonderful, and how will I ever have time to do that? What were those activites? Where are they? What I have to teach this again, re-write my calendar? What are my main objectives in The Crucible, anyway? And why didn't I have time to write that out, to give an outline of my goals before the unit? Oy. Xanax, where are you? Why haven't I been clever enough in the activities? How are the kids getting this? Is it too fast? Why aren't they doing their homework? Why didn't I take those reading surveys and put them into data graphs so I could show them that those who said they looked up words in the dictionary were the ones getting As in class, that those who said they put reading into their own words are more likely to do well? Why? How? When?

*
And today I came home to a package from Rochester, a wonderful care package from Kris, full of tea and treats and wonderful notes and jokes about vegan shoes. God, God, a wonderful package, after I walk in from the rain, brush off my rain coat, put the key in the door like only a single, over-worked woman can, like a lonely literary character might who is reflecting on how much work she does, how she's wondering what happened to her social life. And there was the package. It was an utter shrill of glee that came from my throat.

So, here we are. Wednesday night. I didn't eat a healthy meal yet this week, want to cook, don't have the energy. Should stay here for the weekend to finally finish unpacking this place, sweep the floor, finish the dishes. But I don't want to, can't stay here to do all of those dull, sad things--I need to see people who aren't 15-18. Why can't I just stay so it's easier in the week? No. No. Why can't I just have a night where I don't have 8 hours of work after my 8 hour day, so I can have a real weekend. Eh.

Surviving last week.

Wasn't easy.

There were subtle clashes with the department chair, kids acting like kids--putting magnetic poetry on my podium that suggested I was a "manly and smelly teacher," sobbing in front of a new therapist, worries about money, nights at school until 7:00.

But much of the apartment is now unpacked, and I have heat. I baked pumpkin bread yesterday, brought it to a co-worker's house for game night with the two of us and three of her engineering friends, recently laid off from the Hutch Technologies. And she had amazing hot cider and pumpkin cookies with brown sugar buttercream frosting. It was wonderful, but it's hard to play games with people that aren't you, where I can't answer NJ to the questions I don't know. Where certain friends talk themselves through a string of thoughts to get to the obscure right answer. Today I'm attempting to make chicken breasts with mushrooms and pecan sauce over whole wheat pasta, grading 30 horrible papers, and writing lesson plans for both of my classes.

Tomorrow: parent teacher conferences from 3:00 until 8:00; and the school doesn't feed us; and the last thing I want to do is stay at school for that long, so long. Talking to parents.

This town has two vacuum repair shops across from the street on Main Street, and it drives me crazy. It drives me crazy that at the grocery store yesterday and at Target that I encountered two co-workers, that I can't go out without seeing everyone from school.

I'm trying to make tradition here--went for a run yesterday as tiny snowflakes found their way to the grass, avoided the ice on the sidewalk. Bought the Tribune this morning and even a scratch off lottery ticket to somehow feel like my dad (and won $3). But every now and again, I just think of home, Mankato, or Rochester, the places where tradition didn't have to be forced--where it just happened and felt easier, felt comfortable. Where I didn't get the strong pinch in my gut like something was missing.

Oy.

Yesterday I kicked a kid out for saying, when he got to class late, to another student: I'm going to kill you. I'm going to fucking kill you.

Before that, in the morning, a crying freshman came up to me to let me know that he was suspended in school for punching a kid in the face. This is the same freshmen who once wrote that his father had screamed and screamed at him for once spilling a glass in a restaurant, and I can't help but tie the two together, and I can't help but worry about this poor, quiet kid. Because what could've prompted him to punch someone in the face? And, he seems so soft and gentle, so considerate and young.

I'm clashing with my department, just a little. There are things that I don't agree with, things that I have to do that don't allign with my teaching philosophies. It's not as bad as it could be, but it is particularly frustrating.

I can't figure out how to turn on the heat in my apartment, and it's really cold in here. Also, because I'm so busy with school, I don't have time to unpack. Also, I think I'm going to treat myself to some Chinese food and then go buy a garbage can. Hooray for the vivacity of my life.

Oh, Robert Bly, thank you for the words I will live by this year.

Each of us deserves to be forgiven, if only for
Our persistance in keeping our small boat afloat
When so many have gone down in the storm.

*

I had a fantastic weekend in Albertville, and it was good to leave Hutchinson, and it was heartbreaking and sickening to come back to this place full of boxes.

I was getting used to Hutchinson last week, but then the week got so long I felt lost at sea, kicking my legs to stay up, clutching onto driftwood and crying so hard I forgot what hungry was.

I cried at school, not in front of the students, but at school, in the hallway, in front of another teacher who I ran up to and commanded you have to tell me something positive, or I am going to absolutely lose it. A disaster on Wednesday, a kid who threw his arms up in protest and decided he couldn't learn about the Puritans because they were against everything he believed in, even though we of course are just studying Puritanism and I am not instigating a new Puritan movement in West Central Minnesota.

And I went back to class with puffy eyes, leaving only suspicion to the students, and I sniffled a couple of extra times and fake-coughed so we all could pretend it was illness.

That student is no longer in my class. He has been kicked out three times, and he has failed. I have already failed a student.

*

The school week exhausts me to the point that I feel made of rubber, that I feel like I even have the stink of hard rubber on my skin. There were days I stayed at school until 6:00 this week (school is over at 2:15) and instead of coming home to relax, I come home to not unpack but instead grade papers for three hours. Until 9:00. I work for the weekend like a song should be written about it. And when the weekend comes, I just need a solid two days to plug myself in, to re-energize--but instead I have to work for the entire weekend. On school. On calendars and lessons. And so I have to start the weekend with only a half-charged battery and just pray it doesn't run out on me. It's like being the last roommate to take a shower in the morning and praying that the water doesn't turn cold. I just need the warm water to last until Friday.

I went running one day last week.

I went home this weekend and I ran on Saturday and Sunday, in 45 degrees and tall socks and calf-length sweatpants and it was magnificent.

Oh, the weekend was so glorious. Oh, the weekend.

I hinted to it on my last post--but something wonderful has happened with my family, with going home, that I haven't been able to identify. But I went shopping with my mom for groceries, and it was fun, and I remembered that sometimes she and I identify, and I suggested the family go out to dinner, and we all had pizza and we played hangman at the table with crayons, and my hangman clue was: Travis eats poop and his was Jean is a bad teacher.

And today I watched the Twins and I cheered, and for a little while after I watched the tribute to the Metrodome and their last game there, and I got a little choked up all about it--because, well, the Metrodome was born the same year I was, and well, I just spent a lot of my young-Jean days connecting with Rich over baseball. He'd get tickets from work, Craig and I would take turns fighting over who got to go because he only had two tickets behind home plate. I just had some good American father-daughter baseball times in that Dome. And we can't forget the Dome dogs. Nor the malt ice cream eaten with wooden sticks.

It was just good to be home, and I can't remember the last time I said it was just good to be home, and now I have to wonder what all of this is about. The nostalgia from this weekend has made me physically sick, ill with memory. My gut feels empty, or it feels like I've lost something. Leaving home today was the same feeling as bad news.

But, as Orwell said: You have learned something. That always feels as first as though you have lost something. Maybe living at home for that month and a half finally forced me to grow up, to move on, to get over it. To get over all of it, perhaps. Maybe I needed my family--again--to get me through a shitty part of my life, and they helped in their weird family way, and my gut is telling me to be thankful for it. Or maybe I'm scared because I'm growing up, because I'm an adult now, and I see change, and I see what won't last. And I think I've figured out that the reason it was so hard to come back to Hutchinson, to this town that still needs to decide what it's going to mean to me. Because the image of the tree-lined streets I was glowing about earlier? Well, I realized all those thick branches and heavy leaves are surrounding the Oakwood Cemetery. I ran by it on a cold, gray last Tuesday. The only color that day was the circle of red from the stoplight and the white pixels from the light of the tiny man letting me, finally, walk.

*

Two favorite images from the week include:

1) The Shoe Inn. I dropped off a pair of heels to get re-capped, and I discovered that the shoe repair place in Hutchinson is run by an old man who wears his pants above his waist, thus confirming his old manness. The Shoe Inn has an old cash register from the 40s or 50s, and it is a tiny room with shoes and shoe parts everywhere in drawers and tall piles. Tools. It costs $8 to fix a $60 pair of shoes, but the most magnificent aspect of the Shoe Inn, aside from the old man who is repairing my heels, is the fact that he listens to marching band music and blares it from his radio while he does work. The trombones, the brass, the brass.

2) Let myself have an hour and a half this weekend and Saw A Serious Man. And was convinved that Darren and I were the only gentiles in the entire theater for the 2:15 show; and on the way out of Utptown, in the 50 degrees and overcast, saw the line for the next show, people in trench coats winding around the corner of the building and down the block. Sometimes a line at the movies--in the gray below the flashing bulbs and the old-fashioned marquee--is a humbling kind of image.

I don't want to go to school tomorrow. I want my mom to make me breakfast, and then I want it to rain all day while I read and read and read.