Mostly, I hate kids.

What really sucks is that I have half of a post called "the semester in review" written and that I haven't had time to do the rest. Now it's going to be all out-of-date and backwards and shit.

But it still makes sense to keep plowing forward. My goal is to write here more, write about the little things, so when I go back to look at the first year of teaching I remember what my day was like day to day. When I was so, so tired.

The 2nd trimester, so far, has been what I expected. The third week in, and I finally know everybody's name. This weekend I graded a paper from every student--100 some papers--and by the time I was done, I wanted to shoot myself in the face. There's only so much one can say to a freshman's descriptive paragraph. Like "use more detail here" or "you really organized these ten sentences quite nicely" or "double space" or "rough draft?" or "I like this simile".

And as for the seniors, well. I have about six of them who have yet to hand in any sort of homework assignment, and we have 77 points (like out of 400) in that class so far. I don't know what the fuck they're thinking, or if they have any prospects of graduating. Guess what? I said after two homework assignments, they don't offer this class third trimester. Either you pass it now, or congratulations! You have night school. And they still won't fucking hand in their work. I truly, truly don't understand. Even that one smart girl that I really like didn't hand in her college essay. I guess I'm just done asking. And then, when they say, hey, can I hand in my college essay and still get full credit? I'll be all like, no. I feel helpless. I don't know how to get them to do their work. And there are so many of the lazies. An abnormal percent.

Last week I went to the doctor, and I hooked myself up with some Ambien. He was all, trouble sleeping, and I was all yup. And then I snuck in, casual-like, that I was once on Ambien to help with my sleep problems. Then, before I left he said that maybe we'd try Ambien again? And I had to hide my excitement. And I didn't take it last night and I got no sleep. And I'm so tired.

Also, he's decided that I need to have a sleep study. So on the 6th of January, I'll be asleep at Meeker County Memorial with a bunch of shit attached to my face. I'm pretty sure I don't have sleep apnea, but I guess I do wake up with headaches, and I'm notorious for being tired. One could blame the whiskey, though.

A student in my first class makes a whistling sound a couple of times every hour. I don't know if he does it with his mouth, or if he does it with some sort of whistle. The problem is that I don't know who it is, exactly, because I'm bad at catching things like that, so I'm not sure what to do about it. But it drives me fucking crazy, and certainly one day I'll just lose it and scream FUCKING STOP WITH THE WHISTLING. But I can't, because kids like when teachers lose it like that, and I don't want to give them the pleasure. First hour, blech. Blech on you, first hour.

And it's hard starting over, because I just want to know these kids better than I do. I want to know who needs more attention as we're reading, who the strong and weak writers are, who can give me faith for the future of kids, who needs a little more care and attention. But I see kids in the back of the class, kids I just sort of forget who are there, and I think, oh yes, that girl is in my class. She seems like she knows what's what. How did I forget about her? And since the first day of the trimester, I've already had about four kids drop out of my classes. Small class sizes are fantastic, but I wonder where they're all going. Perhaps there is a kid-eating monster who lives in the scary basement of the school. If so, I should get to choose which kids are sacrificed. I can give a list of about 20 names. Hope he's hungry for assholes.

This week is so long. It was hard to go home last weekend, and then hard to come back for this three day week. It's hard to not be teaching college, thinking of that glorious month-long break I used to have; it's hard to come to school the day before Christmas Eve; it's hard to think about the trimester that will find me in March, the one where I'll have so, so much work again, new preps, new kids, new beginnings. It's hard to think about looking for new jobs during this time, figuring out how to get letters of recommendation, figuring out what to do with the next year of my life. It gives me a headache. Where are my anxiety meds.

At the end of the day today, I found at least three of the handouts I'd asked students to keep either in the recycling, garbage can, or folded into a paper airplane on the heating vent. The folded airplane had so many creases, it looked like an accordion of paper, and the air from the vent blew the paper enough that it danced on the grate. In an independent movie, it'd be the one moving thing in the scene, the camera zooming in on the innocent movement of the paper, the repeating, annoying movement that made the main character finally crack and lose her goddamned mind. I think of the students who will ask me for another handout when that assignment is due, and I want to squeeze something until it pops.

They take time to destory, but they don't take time to read. They don't take time to think. They take everything in as quickly as they can, and then they spit it out as quickly as they can. They won't hold onto anything--papers, assignments, information, criticisms, ideas--any longer than they absolutely have to. Can I throw this away? Do I have to keep this? Do I need this, Ms. Prokott? They're bulimics. Before they even get the nutrients of this information, they spew it back up. Repeat.

And on the floor today, next to the vent, was one of my crayons, one that I bought for school, shattered. And other parts smashed and squished into pieces. Red-orange, little flecks on the linoleum floor. And next to that, a mechanical pencil, the plastic shattered like glass, the little orange clip busted off, the empty casing, useless without lead.