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.

And lo, the Lord said, lo.

Lo, He said, Jeano, you shall have the best duplex in Hutchinson, the most reasonably priced, the one with the laundry in the basement for free, so you may have fresh sheets on your first night here, your first night back in your very own bed since the beginning of June; lo, He said, you shall be four minutes from Target, you shall love, love, love this place, and lo, on the day that you move your two brothers shall help you, your father, two of your brother's friends, and lo, the move shall go quickly. Lo.

And, lo, the great Lord said, lo, Jeano, I know you're not so ecstatic to be living in Hutchinson, lo, you have a horrible classroom, and I know you'd rather, so much to be in Rochester, and all day, lo, you spoke of Rochester and apologized that you'd be moving again in 9 months, most likely, no matter what you shall find on your horizon, whether it is southern Minnesota or not, and, lo, the great Lord said, because you have been so patient with your life (well, not really, but lo, the Lord is forgiving) and because you are not in the first city you'd like to be, you shall have this amazing duplex, so close to your school, so close to work, and lo, even after the first day it shall feel like home because the carpet is thick and brown and the rooms are big, and this is exactly what you imagined your very first ever duplex to be like. Of course, the only thing missing is Liz. But there is no Liz, although this place feels so much like it has been plucked out of a nice neighborhood in Minneapolis. And this is the first place you live on your very own.

And, lo, the great Lord said, you shall have free internet, even if it is a little shady and only works in your room, and hopefully it will stick around so you may save yourself $50 a month, and lo, says the Lord, spend that money wisely because you got your student loan statement in the mail yesterday and you owe as much for loans as a couple would owe for a starter house.

*

I told my brother Travis that a student called me Ms. Pro-snot. His 11-year-old response was that if anyone says that to me again, that I should tell the student that he is going to kick their fucking ass. How adorable.

*
Whew. Moved to Hutchinson today; live here now. I love, love this duplex. I'll post pictures when I can, when it won't take nine hours to upload them to my computer, and of course, once I unpack all of these things. I don't have a bookshelf, and I need about three of them. We'll see when that will get done. My vinyl is alphabetized. Nothing in the kitchen is unpacked, and I have no food.

The one good thing about moving day is that it's a free pass to eat whatever you want. So, thank you moving day, for a big mac. Lo, the Lord said, here is a free ticket for a big mac, you shall go through the drive thru all sweaty, you shall go to Target looking like hell and pray that you shall see no students there.

The streets in Hutchinson are tree-lined, and this city has more parks per capita than any other in Minnesota. I'm still shady about this town, but I don't think it's this town as much as it is that I have nobody here with me. For example, if I fell in love with someone who insisted we stay in Hutchinson, I might not cry over it. But I imagine that I will spend every night alone in this place, in my cute little place, so vintage, so cute, and nobody will ever see it. You should come over.

It was hard to say goodbye to my dad today, hard to watch him drive away in the truck, and it's hard not to be at home right now. I've been thinking about my life at home for the past month, and I haven't been bitching about it, because it hasn't been a disaster. Nobody will cook me dinner anymore. Nobody will bring home doughnuts on Sunday, no dog will bark and bark when I walk up the sidewalk. I tolerated home. After 6 weeks, I got damn used to it--to the point that coming here was like leaving home again. Last Sunday my mom and I had brunch in downtown Minneapolis and then went shopping. We got along. We had a good time. How does that happen.

And today I found out that my sister won her social security case. The case I said she would never win. The one I had no hope for. So, the government, I guess, is giving her money. And she will be moving to Missouri in a couple of months. And she will be taking Dingleberry with her. Dear God, she better be taking Dingleberry with her. She has to, right?

I did no school work this weekend, though it was most certainly in my plans. Lo, the Lord said, it shall be okay.

God, this place is cozy. If only I could uproot it and take it to Rochester, or wherever it is I shall end up.

And so continues Life. So continues the just for 9 months, just for a year, just for now, just until things settle in and settle down. It'd be so much easier if I just had someone else here. Anyone else. I have to eat alone to try these restaurants. And it's a good thing I like going to the movies alone. Maybe I'll become a really good cook in the next 9 months. Maybe I'll get a subscription to Cooking Light, and a literary magazine that suits my fancy, and maybe I'll run off significant pounds on these tree-lined streets. Maybe nothing will change, maybe I'll leave happier, maybe I'll leave less happy, maybe I'll stay for longer than expected, maybe I'll put up my Christmas tree even though I'm the only one to look at it, maybe. I've been having a really tough time with singledom, making this move.

It seems like I can do anything, but only because I have to, because I have no other choice--but if I had someone else, how much easier, how much more exciting it would be; if it could be our cute, weird little place, if we could snuggle up on the porch and watch the leaves change color, if on this first fall-feeling day, we could welcome the rain together, wish each other a good day off to work. If we could eat bad food in front of a movie, split the electric bill, cut unpacking time in half, take a shower before bed, then both decide to call in sick the next day. And, because I'm now living the real life instead of the student life, this singledom just becomes all the more difficult--what if it never happens, what if I just keep making these moves on my own, never able to buy a house because of my bad credit, never ever to meet other couples, or play Scrabble or Cribbage on a random night. How much easier it would be. How much I want it to happen, how scared I am that school will eat me alive, it will just eat me and I will be so busy with students, and I will just walk around by myself like I plan to in a couple of weeks, taking picture of the quirky things about this town (like the phone booth) and seem so, so lonely.

Like independent-movie lonely.

I always play that game when I move somewhere new--as I was taking down the neon green curtains today and putting up my own, I thought--what will have changed about me the next time I leave this place?

How will I be different. Will it be hard to leave.

Words from the diary of your beloved, exhausted Ms. Pro-snot.

On Tuesday a student kicked himself out of class. I told him to stop talking while I was explaining something, and he stood up, slammed his books on the desk and said, I'm SICK OF THIS! I'M GOING IN THE HALL and then just walked out and had a seat.

If only it was that easy. If only kids just knew when it was time to get kicked out of class. What a trailblazer, this one.

I continued on with the explanation, got the kids started on something else and went to talk to him.

The conversation led to him saying, I'M SICK OF THIS SHIT about three times in a row, then me, trying to figure out what the hell "shit"meant, then him accusing me of picking him out to yell at him when everybody else is talking in class too, then me trying really, really (unbelievably) hard not to take that personally (because it's not true--I, of course, yell at everyone) and then me trying to figure out, still, what the "shit" was that he was sick of. MY FRIEND IS IN THE HOSPITAL he said, and I can't believe you would treat me like this when my friend is in the hospital! And I calmly explained that there was no way I could've known without him telling me, because how could I, and then we talked more and he cried and sort of calmed down and I just let him sit out there the whole time because he didn't want to go the counselor. We had a quiz that day, we did, but a curly-haired boy doesn't cry over a quiz, so I believed him. You can't think about quizzes when your friend is in a white styrofoam bed.

He was great the next day. He was, apparently, no longer sick of my shit.

I was incredibly content with yesterday. I walked out of school yesterday feeling confident, feeling like I'd done something right. The night before I'd planned a little lecture for my seniors about how to grow up how to be appropriate, and when I gave half of the 10 minute I'm digusted with you speech they seemed ashamed and averted their eyes. I can only take this as a good sign, as a tail between the legs, snout-down sort of response.

And a PowerPoint I'd planned for the freshmen went well. I had plenty of jokes, I said to the class, I know you're shy and that's so cute about you, but you can do this, you can, I had plenty of good things to say, and even though the frosh were taking down lots of notes, they didn't seem too upset because I was giving them a show up there, feeling very much like the Ms. P self that had been in front of the students in Rochester--at the end of the year, the part of the year when they liked me. Not the beginning of the year, which students reminded me last year, had been a rough start, but I really, really got better as time went on! It was a solid day yesterday. Went by fast, problems handed smoothly. I pulled a pencil out of my hair and a kid said I was totally ninja and I took it as a big compliment, students laughed when I said regarding the "no food or gum" rule while giving speeches: Basically, don't stand up here and eat a bag of Doritos in front of the class. And I know I chew gum up here when I teach, but you don't want to take that risk when you're giving your speech. I mean, imagine if it flew out of your mouth and landed on L's desk. You'd be the gross-gum kid.

One kid smiled that I'd never seen smile. He was the one who, in a journal, indicated that "a time when he was embarrassed" was when "he spilt a shake at the restaurant accidently and his dad was so mad and yelled at him so loud that the entire restaurant looked at him." He came up to me after class to make snide comment about his speech.

I kicked a kid out of class yesterday for the second time, a problem kid who'd missed school for a week, and because of our "kick-out" policy and his second kick-out, that meant a mandatory meeting with his parents. I wasn't nervous for the meeting because his mother and I have been communicating and she was clearly on my side, but it was still my first meeting regarding student discipline. Administration was on my side, which I'm grateful for, his parents were on my side, which I was grateful for. And I said what I needed to, and I shook hands, and I couldn't have been more professional had I had little business cards with my name on them to pass out after the meeting. Or maybe clicky pens with my name on the side of them.

I complimented him. I nailed the problem on the head even when the others couldn't: it's not that he's not smart--it's not that you're not smart--it's that you just want attention in class. You just want all eyes on you at all times, and it's not fair to the class. He said, English isn't my subject. And I said, sorry. I just have to disagree with you. He proceeded to look no one in the eyes the entire time and pick off his pink nail polish. He proceeded to take nobody seriously.

I wanted to say, I think you're afraid of what you're capable of--but it felt a little too "After School Special." Then we'd all have had to break out our 80s hair, some soft jazz would've had to come out of the speakers, and I'd have to put my arm around his shoulders and refer to him as champ. Or bud. Or tell me what's really getting to you! While he proceeded to cry.

Of course, if it had been an After School Special, the scene after the commercial break would've involved a shot of my classroom the next day, everyone finally shutting the hell up with their "we're so funny freshmen" comments, everyone getting along, students raising their hands and giving answers with a "thumbs up!" from the teacher on the sly as a reward for good behavior, big, gross smiles and crooked kid teeth or braces from every student in every row, kids saying aloud, I get this, Ms. P., I get it! Me over-acting, using dramatic, wide gestures, me with curled bangs and a fuschia sweater with shoulder pads, me in a knee-length skirt with an elastic waist band and stitched pockets, me with sensible nurse-looking shoes, beige.

But instead, the shot of my classroom today involved the aforementioned kid from the meeting refering to me as Ms. Pro-snot.

Instead, the scene from today invovled me kicking out another student, one who is just as bad as the first, the one who I talked to in the hallway yesterday about growing up, the one who has decided he's not only not going to do work in my class, but he's going to stop everyone else from doing work, the one with the blonde hair and the freckles and the goofy student picture that I have to stare at and curse in our school system every time I look up his information to call his number. As he left, he said, THIS IS BULLCRAP. Now I get to have a meeting with his parents. Imagine the joy. Imagine me at this meeting, feeling a little less professional, imagine me, feeling like I really have to prepare because I have this inkling that I'm just going to get snowballed, that when it comes to me explaining how awful he is in my class, that I'm not going to be able to physically explain how bad it actually is, how bad he actually is, how he has a comment for everything, how it's like he's been sent from hell to try my patience, how he uses ADHD as an excuse but he's never been tested for it, how I told him that he can't impose his "disability" if he has one on other students in our class, how it's ridiculous that he would use a disability to explain why HE'S A FUCKING DICK.

Today I gave students a Post-it and a paper clip and I asked them to create a symbol with those two items (Chad, I didn't have time to get tinfoil) that represented them, that would allow them to talk about themselves for ten to fifteen seconds. One student drew a mushroom on his paper. When I reminded him that they couldn't draw anything, he rolled his Post-it into a roach and pretended to light it.

On the plus side, nobody stabbed each other with paperclips. But we're giving the speeches tomorrow, so I'll let you know.

Mighty, mighty Tigers.

Last Thursday two bees were in the classroom.

The windows were open to let out the stench of wet, rotting freshmen, and the screen has a tiny hole (or the screens were open, somehow) and two yellowjackets let themselves in, buzzed against the lights, flew in students faces, landed on folders--then landed on a student's head while she was talking to me, then proceeded to attack her as we both swatted, then landed on her mouth, then stung her bottom lip. She squeezed the bee between her fingers and removed him and then looked up at me with the biggest, wettest eyes--like a toddler who is deciding whether to cry after a big boom and waits for his parent's reaction to go through with the decision. I said, Oh my God, are you stung? and she nodded and I said, are you allergic? and I don't know if she really understood me because she's a Chinese exchange student and we have a hard time communicating in the first place. But I didn't remember seeing any bee allergies in student profiles, so I said, nurse! and the bell was about to ring, so we walked down together, her sprinting before me with her hands to her mouth and her eyes still big, me walking in big strides and full arm swings behind her.

So, welcome to America, student. Your lip was as big and thick as my thumb.

Well, I'd noticed some Burt Bees chapstick on her desk, so I have to wonder if it was some kind of sick revenge.

*

I have 80+ freshmen essays waiting for me at home, but I've put off the beloved blog for so long that I owe it to myself to take time for this today. I owe it to you, because I don't call you enough or email you enough, and I owe it to future-Jean, who probably should remember what the first two weeks of high school teaching were like all on her own. And now I just have so much to say that I don't even know how to say it all.

Students are students are students. I know all of their names, I know that 2nd hour is by far my favorite class and that they could be a group of honors students all just thrown together. We wrote creation myths and gave presentations last week, and one group was a parent-at-home shy of bringing in a live rabbit for their presentation. I was impressed. (I won't talk about the other classes.) 3rd hour is my least favorite, and I've kicked out two kids so far, and they're testing and trying me and showing me that my patience isn't nearly what I ever thought or claimed it to be. I'm trying to like them, really, but there is only so much I can do, I suppose. One student talks whenever he wants, whenever I'm trying to make a point. So do three others. I kept them after class one day and explained, very calmly: nobody thinks your funny. And I even wrote them a letter the next day summarizing the other key points in our conversation, but nothing changes. I've talked to parents about two of them. Nothing changes. They make me hate this. But first hour and fourth hour make me love it, so I suppose love is winning. And my seniors make me half love/ half hate this, so love is still winning.

One student wrote I hate people on his index card for the question "name something I should absolutely know about you" and then crossed it out to write I like hunting. One of the kicked-out students made farting noises with his mouth while I was reading to the class. The same student commented on my weight by suggesting a table would break when I sat on it. The same student referred to one of his classmates as such: Oh GOD I have to be in his group? He can't even read. He's dyslexic.

Another of the kicked-out students suggested to a female in the class: I'm going to slit your throat and when I called him over to discuss the comment, he said, what, it's okay, beause she's my friend.

These students, and I want to tell them this, are like scrawny little squirrels who like to fuck with traffic. I'm trying to drive this class, trying to get us to some point, and they keep darting out in front of my school bus, back and forth, over and again, trying to get us on a different path. Or to tip us over or drive us into a tree so we burst into poetic flames. I've knicked their tails a couple of times, but they just live for this danger. They only thing they can think to do is keep darting out in front of the bus. Either they don't like where we're going. Or maybe for some reason they feel they can't join us in the car. Or maybe they don't like that I'm a woman driver. Or maybe they're just fucking fourteen-year-old a-holes.

The classroom heat is killing me. Seven students have melted.

Every day I try to deal with the battle and balance of responsibility versus my job, versus the responsibility of my job. I carry the weight of all of these kids, and I lose sleep wondering if I'm doing enough, if I can do more, if they can do more, or I'm just assuming that they can. I think about the kids I've kicked out: is this helping them? Are they learning anything? If they're kicked out three times, they're kicked out of class officially, and then it seems as though I've failed them as Teacher. I'm just another person who told them that they couldn't do it, and I've made it harder. And what if they don't graduate because I kick them out and they just feel defeated? Then I think it doesn't matter at all, that my responsibility is to the kids who are there are who want to learn. But then I think that the kids who don't do well are the ones who don't want to learn, and then I think about my responsibility as an educator to make them want to learn, and then I think about the impossibility of time and then I think I'm lazy because I can't conquer this impossibility of time. I just carry this weight. Perhaps it's why I'm breaking tables.

I think so carefully before I say everything, and it's hard when I'm angry not to be condescending or sarcastic (the principal told me that he hates sarcasm because it can't be interpreted correctly--but I would argue that if sarcasm is misinterpreted that it would simply be taken as a compliment instead, right? If I said, Oh, yeah, I just love what you've done on this assignment (like on a half-assed assignment written in crayon) a student would think I was serious and he did a good job--and there can't be much harm in that. I have said, Oh, I'm sorry [student] am I interrupting your conversation to teach this class? And I felt guilty afterwords. I have said, you're annoying and I honestly don't know if that's something I should be saying to kids. The good things can stick with them forever. But the bad ones seem to always stick forever. They're turning me into a bitch. And I don't know how to not be sarcastic. I don't know how to not say, well, have a fun time working at Wal-Mart for the rest of your life. No, no, I'm sure it's a very rewarding career.

Last week I discovered that half of my seniors can't read. Do they not make you read aloud in school for practice anymore? Is that it? And, now I wonder, too: is it my responsibility to help them with this, to prepare them for whatever is coming? Can I blame the teachers who came before me, which is what I did when I taught in Mankato, as in: holy shit. What high school did these kids graduate from? Because here I am now, just pushing off the shock: how did these kids make it through middle school? Are there that many cracks for them to slip through? Should I be teaching grammar because they still don't get so much? No, I suppose I should be teaching Beowulf in three days, as is the time allowed in the curriculum.

God, the weight.

I've found an apartment in Hutchinson, and it's ideal. House-like, with a yard and tomato plants in the backyard and a clothesline and a screened porch in the front. A big kitchen, a walk-in closet, a washer and dryer. But what I'm most excited about is the nine-month lease, because my negative attitude has me excited to hopefully be out of this town in a year. I don't sound grateful for this job, for finding an ideal place, for a paycheck, for decent co-workers. But I am. Things could be a disaster, a lot worse, I say again and again, sometimes out loud on the long drive from Albertville. But every day I think of Rochester. At 3:03 I think of the bell ringing at Century, of my old office, of passing Ms. M. in the hallway and cracking a joke, of checking in with Mr. O., who'd remind me of a job well done before heading home to Elgin. And I still send random emails to Rochester folk, because they still seem to be the only ones who get it. Jokes to Ms. M., sharing something I've done in the classroom because if I say it to anybody here it will seem like I'm bragging, notes to Mr. O., saying, I was mean today. Also, can you send me [this assignment]? I can't tell if I can't cut the ties or I just need somebody to talk to. Or somebody to validate.

All of my memories are good, even though the time there was rough. This is how life works. I only remember the good about high school, about Winona, about Mankato, about Minneapolis, about Rochester. And I can only hope that after this year I'll only remember the good about Hutchinson. I'm a pessimisstic in real-time and an optimist in hindsight. It's an odd curse.

But maybe it was because I connected with the town, somehow, that I'd been in Rochester the summer before school, in class--it was like another college town for me, and for the same reasons I loved Winona and Mankato and felt like they were a home. Hutchinson right now is some small town in the middle of the state, that feels like an island. That feels claustrophobic (and I'm not even living their yet) and hazy and weird. I don't feel tied to it yet. The students for some reason don't seem to be enough. And yes, when I'm living there it will get better. I hope it will. Or it will just feel smaller.

I'm related to my future landlord. She's related to the last name, and we talked about where all of my family grew up--Royalton, Bowlus. She said, ask your dad about Irene, I remember her and some other one on crutches and dad said that Irene was Adolf's wife, his aunt, grandpa's sister-in-law, and Rosemary was Adolf's and Irene's daugther with crutches and cerebal palsy, and from what I can remember from a distant family reunion, a woman with one of the biggest smiles and softest facial features ever.

I'm scared about living alone, I'm scared of coming home to nothing, and I think part of the reason I'm staying in Albertville this extra week is so I can enjoy contact with people who aren't kids or work-related before I move to Hutchinson and am officially eaten by the work monster, keep working because I have nothing else to do or nowhere else to be or no one else to talk to. I'm not good at this.

And so, the decision now to stop writing, stop complaining. Oh, school. You are only two weeks in, it still feels like summer, I've given up on wearing heels after only two days, and I've kept up the impeccable organizational plan I've started. I guess that sums it up. I eat peanut butter and jelly everyday, I wonder how I'm going to do it every day, I hate meetings every day, I blame myself every day for everything gone wrong, even those things I have no control over, and especially the things that I do. Somebody should make a document, formally, that says: you can only work 50 hours a week. Or, you're only expected to do [this] much. Or, you really can't reach every, single student, and it's ridiculous to think you can. But the world of teaching expects me to while at the same time saying to me, you're really not that important.

Last week we read a Iroquios creation myth called "World on the Turtle's Back," and on the same day I passed a crushed turtle in the middle of County Road 37. The turtle was cartoon-huge, and it was, indeed, crushing to see his orange and green shell in pieces, his body below, his head and feet and tail splayed and flat to the road. I imagined the crunch from the truck that must have hit him, wondered how it couldn't have just moved out of the way--you'd think the turtle's slowness could've saved him--I imagined that maybe he hadn't been hit at all, that maybe it was just the weight of the world that pushed him down. In the myth, the world is planted on the turtle's back, and a woman and her daughter walk in circles around the seed of the earth until it grows and grows and grows. But maybe after carrying the weight of the world for so long, the turtle just finally just let it win. He needed to rest. He couldn't be expected to carry everyone's world forever, right?

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.