Random things to note.

*All of my students with hispanic bad names are getting a D or lower. I'm a shitty teacher. Soy una maestra mal. I'm doing what I can to help, but I can't get them to do their homework.

*Yesterday, I had the students make Post-Secret cards written from the perspective of characters in The Crucible. I said it has to be serious. Nobody is gay. Making them have a gay secret is the easy way out. One kid--a greasy kid with messy dark hair, braces, gross tennis shoes and dirty jeans--wrote on his card from the perspective of John Proctor: I am a seman donor. And then he drew a picture of a cup with some stuff in it. I told him that it was not only inappropriate for me to hang in my classroom, but also disgusting. And most importantly, that it had nothing to do with John Proctor's character. And that he spelled semen wrong.

So, he changed it. He erased the picture. Then he wrote: I am a semon donor and he took a piece of tape and hung it. The activity was near over, and I saw it. I announced loudly, in front of the class: HEY DUSTIN YOU SPELLED SEMEN WRONG AGAIN. Also. This is inappropriate, so come and take it down.

And he did.

*Next week, we have Snow Week. An activity day on Friday. I didn't get to choose which activity I want to do. I have to go sledding with a bunch of kids next Friday. No, thank you. But I have no choice. Good thing my snow pants are in Hutchinson. And I plan on purposely running over some kids.

*I love Romeo & Juliet. I love more when my kids love it and write I LOVE THIS PLAY I LOVE IT I LOVE IT all over their homework. I also love when the make jokes about the movie, such as when Friar John is supposed to deliver the letter: well, of course he didn't there on time. He's taking a donkey. ...and he's not even riding it! He's walking a donkey to go and get Romeo that letter.

*Today, I found out that a student audio-taped my class on his ipod. A teacher emailed me and said: Tyler somehow recorded your class. He and his friends were listening to it, and I overheard them laughing about something in your class. I think he recorded my class, too. This creeps me the fuck out. Why would a kid (a kid with a bad reputation, mind you, who is also failing) tape record things I say? I'm so paranoid, yet I haven't said anything that inappropriate in class. (Note that this kid is not in the same class as the "semon" kid.) Anyway. It could be cheating, and he's going to get yelled at for doing this tomorrow, but somehow I feel violated. Like in the way that you're never supposed to take pictures in a theater, of a set. Leave that shit how it is; it can only be in your memory. And don't make fun of me, you fucking students. You better only be laughing because I'm funny. But you're probably not. You're probably making fun of how awful I sound on tape or how I say "um" too much or something. Fuckers.

*Next Saturday, I have to chaperone a dance. I've asked the Good Doctor, who I am now getting along with after a year-long drought, to be my date for the dance. He said that a high school dance would be fun, so he will come. I've purchased a new dress, a vintage black number with a ruffly top. I also intend to wear opera gloves to this Snow Days dance. Why the fuck not.

Night & Day.

Today the seniors and I talked about night and day in Romeo & Juliet.

They realized, of course, that day is when all the bad stuff happens and that night is when all the good stuff happens. And while they were working on a project to help them figure this out, I went ahead and played a Neil Diamond song.

I said: So, listen to this song. I want you to tell me how it relates to the play. It's called "Thank the Lord for the Night time."

And we listened to Neil. And some kids started laughing. And I said: anyone who makes fun of this song can go to the office.

And they said: we weren't making fun of it. We were saying it was awesome.

And I said: that's right. Neil Diamond's the best.

And then I taught them some shit.

Already thinking of some offensive VD cards to make you.

Today in numbers:

1: The number of kids whose dogs had really died yesterday after I jokingly said the hypothetical in my senior class: so, let's say your dog died yesterday (erm, I hope nobody's dog really died yesterday...)

1: The number of kids who came up to me after class to say: Uh, yeah, Ms. Prokott, I hate to say this, but Megan's dog really did die yesterday.

27: The number of kids I assigned to detention today, because they didn't have their homework done; 1/3 of my freshmen.

6: The number of quizzes that I graded out of 8 at school today that had failing grades (the rest will be graded tonight).

1: The number of students, who on the essay question on that test spelled house such as: hows.

*

Fart on today's face.

Yesterday I drew boobs on the board when talking about a naked lady. I did this first hour. But then, after that class, I said to myself: Jean, what the fuck are you doing? You can't fucking draw boobs on the board, even if they are to circles on a stick figure! You are going to get as fired as fuck. For the rest of the hours of the day, I drew black "censor" squares over the invisible genitals of my stick figures. The kids laughed more at the censor squares. Duh. Because your English teacher drawing circle-boobs has got to be uncomfortable.

How often I do things in class and say: what the fuck were you thinking, you irresponsible person in charge of children. How often to I say: Jean. Stop drawing boobs.

Note on desk from student, written on green post-it, stuck to his late homework assignment.

hey could you grade this right now and put it in the grade book [online] so I can get me snowmobile back tonight thanks

Just like Videoland.

When I worked at Videoland in Winona, my least favorite thing was to call the late list. When movies were 4 days late, we had to call people and remind them, leave messages on machines, ask them, kindly, where the fuck their movies were.

Most places are automated about this now, but I'm talking back in the days 2003, before we had such fantastic technology.

Anyway, I have 8 seniors who are currently failing my class. And because I don't want kids failing, because I don't like it, because I give a shit that they do their work (look, I'm just trying to make myself look like a good teacher--are you buying it?) I called the parents of all those seniors and I told on them. I ratted them out. I talked to parents, I left messages on answering machines with my school phone number, and when the lines were busy, I found email address and I composed careful, detailed emails about failing students.

Can I just say I'm lucky so far? Let me knock on wood, but my relationships with parents have been pretty fantastic so far. In Rochester and in Hutchinson. A lot of teachers have problems, and I will someday I'm sure, but so far, parents are sort of awesome. They apologize for their shitty kids, they say great things to me, like thank you so much for giving him a break, you're doing great, I'm sorry that he's behaving like he is. And then I say nice things about their kids, and the exchange is fantastic. The kids don't always change, but I feel like I'm doing what I can, and that someday the kid will come around.

Here's hoping. Who has 8 out of 24 kids that are failing? Who has a third of her seniors giving up in January? Welcome to night school, you shitty seniors.

A freshman plagiarized his speech today. Zero. Not looking forward to that conversation tomorrow. I kicked a kid out yesterday, for saying, after I asked him to move desks and sit next to someone else: I don't like him. Christ.

Today was a long day. Do I have to do my laundry? I guess so. I guess it's time to get addicted to American Idol again.

Cheers.

The unsleep study.

A sleep study and a 13-year-old sleepover are not alike in the following ways:

1) at a sleep study, you don't get to ring a doorbell when you get there.
2) at a sleep study, there are no Doritos, nor is there Mountain Dew.
3) at a sleep study, nobody freezes your bra.
4) at a sleep study, you only play truth or dare with yourself.
5) at a sleepover, you don't wear wires and things attached to your head when you go the bathroom.
6) at a sleep study, nobody's mom offers to make you eggs.
7) nobody's insurance covers a sleepover.

But they are miraculously alike in the following ways:

1) you arrive in your pajamas and with a backpack that has a book and your pillow in it.
2) somebody with cold hands puts them down your shirt.
3) you pretend to sleep when you're really not, so you can listen if you're friends (or that nurse outside the door) are secretly talking about you when you're "passed out."
4) you can't fall asleep no matter how hard you try; you're nervous about farting because somebody might hear it, even though you have really bad gas pains.
5) somebody says "good night" to you (although, at a sleepover, it's not said over a speaker).
6) somebody is watching you sleep.
7) somebody wakes you up in the morning and you don't want to get up; this waking up includes the turning on of lights that you don't want turned on.
8) you wake up with a shitload of semen in your hair.


*

Okay. Last night was the sleep study in Litchfield. I left late, arrived late, and got to bed late. Litchfield is 30 minutes from Hutchinson, but Hutchinson doesn't have a sleep study center.

It was at a hospital, and I registered, and I had to wear the hospital bracelet. The nurse was annoyed with me for being late, but I blamed the weather (so not the weather's fault) and then she was fine. Her name was Glorianne, she had short, red hair, a round face, a prominent chin. And she smelled like a newborn baby. I sort of liked that.

It takes over an hour to hook all of those wires to your body. She started with two sensors on my legs to sense any kicking in my sleep. Have I shaved in two days? No. How embarrassed of my little stubble. And how painful this morning when she took the tape off. She put a belt around my chest to measure breathing. She put a belt around my stomach. Lots of velcro and buckles. It was like a life jacket, or a poorly worn belt.

The sensors stuck to my chest to montior my heart. Then more wires and more sensors. They all attached to one box. In fact, it looked like a cable box, and I looked like a TV hooked up to it.

On the bed, her work station, I noticed about 8 globs of a glue looking stubstance. This is going in your hair, she said.

Yuck, I said.

So, she explained as she attached them. This goo is like toothpaste. But it will come out when you wash your hair tomorrow morning.

I won't have time to wash my hair tomorrow morning. That's why I showered tonight. I have to get to work right after I leave here. That's what I said.

You...will need to wash your hair tomorrow morning.

She explained as she attached them all: this one will measure your left temporal lobe [sticks gooey sensor to my left temple, pressing hard] this one will measure your occipital lobe [sticks gooey sensor to the back of my skull] this one will measure your parietal lobe [sticks sensor to the top of my skull]. You get the idea.

I am leaking wires. And I have to go to the bathroom. She straps the cable box around my neck, and I go. It's hard to go to the bathroom with wires sprouting out of you like new, randomly long hairs.

Around 11:00, I got to go to sleep. First, I had to breathe into a scary mask for awhile. I couldn't open my mouth, or the mask suctioned to my face. Then she put a breathing sensor in my nose, like oxygen in the hospital.

She said about the first mask: we might have to use this on you in the middle of the night if you're having trouble breathing. I hoped I'd breathe fine. Of course, I always hope that.

I had to lay back in the bed. Glorianne turned out the light, pointed out the camera (how Big Brother, so Big Brother) and left. 10 seconds later, I heard her voice on the loud speaker. The loud speaker. She was talking to me through the other room, so in the dark, I just hear Hi Jean. It's fucking creepy.

I have to breathe through my nose for 30 seconds, then breathe through my mouth for 30 seconds, keep my eyes open for 30, shut them for 30, move my right ankle, then my left. She then says good night, Jean.

And there is no fucking way I'm falling asleep. There are wires all over me. There is a sensor on my finger. There is sticky shit on my head. And it's cold in there. She said she'd bring another blanket, but forgot. I could sit up in my bed, or I could just request it out loud, but I don't. Instead I rub my feet together to get them warm. Then I wonder if it will register that I have restless leg problems because I'm rubbing my feet together.

I hear her talking in the hallway. I wonder if she's talking about that girl in the room--me--who hasn't fallen asleep yet. God, that girl just won't fall asleep.

I lie on my side. It's hard to breathe with the nose sensor up my nose. I try to get the sleep to on my side. I hear the speaker-voice: why don't you try sleeping on your back? So big brother.

She comes in. Are you cold? Do you need a blanket? Yes! She brings to blankets in. They're pretty much napkins. Just as small, just as thin. I'm still cold.

I try. I don't sleep on my back well. I count down from 100 in my head, slowly, but it doesn't make me tired. And oh, I was so tired when I'd gone to bed. Now there is only anxiety. I get to zero on my countdown, so I start counting negative numbers. Now it's just like I'm counting forward but saying "negative" in front of it. I get to number -60 as I'm counting slowly, but then I get sick of it and start counting fast. I get to -88 before I realize that there is no reason to count fast, because it's not relaxing; in fact, it causes more anxiety.

Fuck it, I move to my side again. I think a couple of hours pass. I think I'm half-sleeping. It must be early morning when she says again over the speaker, why don't you move back to your back. I do, but I don't want to. I have to fart. This is gross, I know. But I wonder if she'll hear me fart over her speaker or see something weird in my face on the camera. But I go ahead and do it and hope she doesn't have to come in for any reason and smell me.

I suppose I fall asleep. I know I dream. I dream that I'm in a sleep study, and I dream a student is there for some reason, and I dream we're eating fried chicken, and then I dream that people turn into dinosaurs. Then the light comes on. I'm worried that she's found me to put the mask on. But she's waking me up.

You were in some good REM sleep, there! She says. I'm sorry to wake you up. I'm up. I'm gross. I'm still attached to things. She tells me to lie still and then we go through the 30-seconds-move-your-ankle thing.

She takes all the tapes and sensors off me. The goo is stuck in my hair. I fill out the final questionairre. There is a line that says: did you dream, and what did you dream? And I filled in: I dreamt that I was in a sleep study in an alternate universe, and there were dinosaurs! There was a line that said: how long do you think it took you to fall asleep? And I wrote 2 hours. I asked Glorianne, after, how long it'd taken, and she'd said 25 minutes. Psht. Didn't fucking feel like it.

She said that over 800 pages of brain activity had printed out. They send it to someone who interprets it all--looks at each page 3-4 times and writes up a report on my sleep habits. I want to see the pictures of my brain. How amazing. I want to see everything I know in there.

I drive home in the cold wind, cold snow. I realize that there is no way I have time to shower. No way. I get home and pull my hair back. It's disgusting. It's so disgusting. I just washed in the night before, but the sticky sensor goo does feel like toothpaste in my hair. And then I see it in the mirror.

I've got my hair up and I'm not planning on doing anything else with it, and then I see the big white glob in the front. At both my temporal lobes. The white globs look exactly like semen. They do. They're sticky and thick and it looks like someone has come all over my fucking hair.

I don't have time to wash it before school.

I run to the bathroom, run hot water in the sink, and splash it at my temporal lobes to get the fake-jism out. I have to scrape it under my fingernails and throw it in the sink. It doesn't all come out. I'm going a little freak show. I can't go to school with semen in my hair. I mean, it's not like I'm a senior again.

So I grab a dress scarf and wrap it around my head. It covers the jizz spots. I look like shit. Sort of homeless. sort of hungover. And then I go to school.

And then I find Tessa, my English teacher friend, and I scream there is semen in my hair! She laughs at me. I wonder what would have happened if I'd just left it in. What would students say?

Later in the day I find two of the heart sensors still attached to my chest. And now I'm going to bed, for the love of God.

What Happens When You Tell Seniors A Story

Today I told my seniors the story of Mike the Chicken. Students, I said, instead of our 2-minute debate today, I'm going to tell you a story about a chicken, and I just want you to weigh in on it--tell me if you think it's ethical.

I told the story as such:

This is the story of the headless chicken. So there's this farmer, and his mother-in-law is in town, visiting. The year is 1945. The farmer needs to make dinner, so he goes out to the yard to kill a chicken, and the one he finds is two-and-a-half pounds. He takes his ax and he cuts the chicken's--actually, I think it was a rooster--the rooster's head off. Except when he goes for the cut he misses the jugular and the ear. So the head is cut off, but the chicken--rooster--doesn't bleed out. The farmer leaves it there overnight, and then he finds it in the morning. Turns out, Mike, as he was named, survived the night. In fact, even without his head, he was pecking as though trying to pick up food and sleeping with his phantom head under his wing.

So the farmer decides to make a profit off his chicken. He finds that he can feed him by shoving food down his esophogus, and he can force him to drink with a syringe or something. So he takes Mike on the road. Mike becomes a side show delight, and the farmer even insures him for 10 grand to ensure that nobody steals his chicken. The chicken dies a year and a half later, because he accidently chokes.

So, I guess my question--or what I want you to think about--is: do you think it's ethical or moral to make a profit off this headless animal that he wanted to kill in the first place?

And a student raised his hand, and he said:

Well, yeah, why wouldn't you, if it's gonna make you money. I mean, it's not like we stop feeding blind people or kill blind people because they're blind. So why would you kill a headless chicken.

...

Holy shit.

Practically summer.

It was -18 when I walked out to my car at 6:45 this morning.

Vacation is over. Teaching is hard. I'm tired. I didn't even teach that much today. We just researched for our speeches. Got our peer review on.

You'd be surprised at the number of kids who want to give 1--3 minute speeches on serial killers. You'd be surprised.

I let one kid get away with it. Last trimester. Wanted to give kids the ultimate chance to express themselves, give speeches on whomever they wanted. Why, how, I don't know. Stupid new-teacher mistake, having no restrictions.

And that's how the phrase belt made of women's nipples was once said at the front of my classroom.

How it ended.

The bunny.

The bunny was a gift from Jenny's bridal shower. She was deemed a slut. She was thrown around the house. Jokes were made about her pearl necklace. She was hidden under bed sheets, propped above the toilet. Left lurking outside bedroom doors. She mysteriously appeared where nobody wanted her, and we all talked about violating her in some uncomfortable, profane, sticky, messy way. From what I hear, she was truly the star of Mark's bachelor party.

At the end of the summer, Mark stuffed her in my clothes basket, right next to my sweaty summer socks and dirty underwear. I discovered her when I got home. First, the floral of her dress--what the hell shirt is that?--and then her ears. I pulled her out and laughed. Then she stayed at my parents' house. I threw her on the shelf behind the dryer, and nobody at home asked what the hell she was. She just moved up to the top of the refrigerator in the basement. In the process, she lost her headpiece.

I finally returned her to Green Bay last week. She was the first thing I brought into the house. Jenny laughed; Mark was in the shower. I set her outside the door. Mark finished and opened the door, and we just heard SLUT! and then saw her fly across the living room and into the dining room. She was home.

Jenny decided to make her angry, took a black pen and drew angled eyebrows over her black-jewel eyes. We continued to kick her across the floor. We lifted up her dress and commented on her glued-on legs. She looked like a turkey under there.

When we were at the movies, Mark took the bunny and flipped her over on the couch. Then he put a Kleenex next to her. And a condom opened and out of its wrapper. What a slut. Mark was downstairs. Jenny and I hollered about the violation on the couch.

We dressed her up for New Years. She held the decorations.

And on New Years, when we were drunk, she finally met her demise. The bunny met Webster, and it was a hungry Webster. First went her ears. Then a leg. It was a slobber-filled, stuffing-esque masacre. And that was how it ended.

(And a happy twenty-ten. Let it be bunny free.)