captain crabby.

I'm in a shit mood today. Students, at the end of the (tri) semester drive me crazy, handing in crap last minute even though I told them they couldn't, not concentrating on anything we do.

And today my favorite student called me "loose." It wasn't in a slutty way; he's too naive and young to realize what he meant by the comment. It was in the way that he said, after you're not a first-year teacher anymore, are you still going to be loose? And then he told me the story about the guy at the middle school who was way awesome his first year but then cracked the whip his second year.

He was trying to say I was nice and a cool teacher but the comment really bothered me. I know that classroom management is far from my strongest teaching point, but because of my mood today, it just turned into a dig at how lazy I am at keeping students on track. It just screamed in flashing lights at me: STUDENTS DON'T RESPECT YOU! STUDENTS DON'T RESPECT YOU! STUDENTS THINK YOU'RE COOL AND THAT'S A BAD THING BECAUSE IT MEANS YOU'RE TOO EASY!

Sucks.

I'm also frustrated with myself this week, how I'm not really teaching but sitting at my desk and having to do so much fucking work that I do sort of let the students do whatever. I gave them assignment for the entire hour, and half of them stopped doing it with about 30 minutes left. And I didn't play damage control. It was bad teaching. It shows that I deserved that comment up there. But sometimes it's hard to get motivated, hard to nag. Sometimes I just want to shove tootsie rolls in my mouth instead, email Jenny and Christina, and wait for the day to be over.

Next Monday, it starts over again. Next Monday is like the first day of school again. I'm frustrated with these trimesters, frustrated with Hutchinson, frustrated that even though I'm lucky enough to teach the exact same classes again--giving myself a much easier schedule--that it feels like I'm moving backwards. And backwards is the last, last, last feeling that I need to have right now. How can it feel like Christmas is coming when September 7th is waiting in the wings? It's exactly three months later than that first day, and I have to start all over. Meh.

But. This weekend I look forward to sitting down and writing, sitting in my apartment and organizing pictures and finally hanging things on the wall. I look forward to getting my place ready for the Jenny visit. I look forward to not doing school things. I look forward to fake-designing an album for a mock band, for writing bad poems, for doing other useless shit that makes me incredibly happy. I look forward to wrapping presents. Bing Crosby's Christmas album.

ALL MONTH LONG.

I've been waiting to write a blog post about my trimester in review. This weekend I graded 90-some student projects, and tomorrow I have to write myself a final, but after that, I'm going to blog the shit out of you.

Thanksgiving was interesting, the first half an adventure, the second half in the turkey-smell-and-heat of Shannon's apartment. More later.

I spent way too much money this weekend, more than I had, mostly on myself. I'm bad with money. Let's not pretend I'm not. But I have new running shoes (look, when they're 50% and Nike + adaptable, what do you expect), and I have some new school clothes that I should take back but I won't, and I have a new computer.

That I did need. That was truly on my list of things to buy once I got this job. So, car, computer. All in the same month. Holy shit. But, you know. This stuff will last me for years and years until 5 years later when I get a new car and a new computer.

Hey. Dingleberry moves out of my parents' house tomorrow. My sister drives him to downtown Minneapolis and he gets on a bus and he rides it to Tennessee, to his mother's house. Dingleberry in review sounds like another apporpriate blogpost when I welcome time back into my life.

And my sister leaves for Louisiana on December 8th. Nobody knows how long she'll last down there. She won't be home for Christmas. She's into making mistakes.

Today I left angry.

Does it work with students the way it works with relationships? Can you go to bed angry and then when there is calm at the beginning of class bring up the shite again? Because that's what I intend on doing.

The seniors cheated today on a small assignment. They just had to bring an example of an editorial to class for 5 points, but instead they shared someone's magazine and ripped out the "editorials" right in front of me. I didn't really know what to do with it. The teacher observing my class today pointed out the other cheaters to me after they left. I was irrate. I said fuck a couple of times, then fucking goddamn. I tried to figure out what I was most angry at:

1) the fact that they insulted me by blatantly cheating in front of me, asking for passes to the bathroom (which I gave them) just so they could go and cheat;
2) the fact that they thought that this was okay behavior--as in, who told you that it was okay to cheat on your homework, and is this something you'll just take right on with you to college? Are you the kid who buys his paper off the internet? because it's just so upsetting to see that the "good" kids in class have no qualms about obvious cheating--REALLY? YOU SEE NO PROBLEMS WITH THIS AT ALL? because that's frightening for the future;
3) the fact that I just didn't call them out on it right away but played just a bit naive because I didn't want to confront the situation; or
4) the fact that nobody in that class (save for a few) really gets school, that I get frustrated that I have to remind students that I don't just give homework to grade them, that they are supposed to take pride in the learning process and be happy to learn things, not to ask are we going to have to hand this in? so they can decide whether to really try on it (you know, try by figuring out what I "want" and then giving it to me) or to half ass it and not really learn a thing.

Why can't they just be excited to learn things. Why can't they realize how awesome it is to know. Why can't they realize that their brains are muscles, and that the more they continue to half-ass their workouts, walk those two miles instead of run, let the treadmill run and tally miles while they stand with their feet on the side while text messaging a bunch of drama-nobody-cares-bullshit, that it's going to be all the more difficult when they realize they can't make it up the real goddamned hill.

***
At the end of a driveway in Albertville I saw two things: (1) a small-framed, white aluminum baby bed with a cheap, plastic foam mattress, and (2) a rusted grill.

Grillin' babies? The ol' burger and bed?

I don't know. But you short story writers (Chelle, you said you were all about the fiction this semester?)--well, you short story writers could do something with that.

Intrepid, how I'll miss you.

It seems nothing to be sad over, getting a new car. But when I pulled out of the driveway in my new Impala and I saw the Intrepid still sitting there, with its faded paint and its hole in the bumper, and that little bit of rust starting to form on the trunk--I teared up. The Intrepid. The era of the Intrepid is over.

I keep chunking my life this way--into eras. Together they don't make sense, because they don't align. The era of school, the era of a car, the era of Dingleberry, the era of forensics, the era of thinking clearly after high school, the era of Tony Sims, the era of teaching. The era of the Intrepid was defined by late undergrad, then grad school, then a rough year of no school, and then grad school again. Most of my 20s were in that car. This year I've called, or considered, adulthood. I have a salary, and I pay into a retirement fund, and consistently, money is put into my checking account. I've decided that the reason I'm getting along so well with my family, that I've left so much of my angst and anger behind is because I'm an adult and that's what adults do--even though this wasn't a conscious decision. I pay bills, put stamps on them, I make coffee in the morning and I bring it to work. This is all new for me. And it makes it harder, but appropriate, I guess to let the Intrepid go. Most kids in the high school parking lot had better looking cars than I did, and my dad was saying things like you break down on the way to Green Bay with that car, we're leaving it there. But, sigh. What a good car. It was good to me. It was my first major purchase, that car, and for six years I watched it age. And now I just let it go. I just left it there and came back home without it.

So, I'll miss: the message center with its orange light telling me, again, it was time to add washer fluid; the excitement I had when I first got it, driving back to Winona, how I said nice Intrepid to everyone who had the same car as me; the excitment I had because I'd gotten rid of the Spirit and all those times I spent jumping it with Jessica's Cavalier; the long trips by myself to St. Louis, listening to Sinatra for about six hours straight on the way home, crying, missing Ryan; the drive down Huff street with Jessica in the passenger seat, rolling down her window and locking it while blasting "MMMBop" from the speakers while she attempted to duck her head; the drive down to St. Louis to live there for the summer, the summer in St. Louis, driving around St. Charles, the drive to Mankato from there to meet Reedo and find a place to live; that green star sticker from Southwood Terrace that I still have in the corner window; all the drives to the cities during that first year in Mankato up to Tony Sims, coming out to that car after the late nights at the bar, listening to the TSB CD with Shannon on our drive back home to sleep, so wonderfully and drunkenly on the warm bed, head next to the heater; then the drives back listening to the TSB CD; the times through drive thru, bacon egg and cheese biscuits; the speeding tickets, even; using the big seats to haul furniture--from Winona to St. Louis, from St. Louis to the first Mankato apartment, from the first apartment to Highland, from Highland to St. Louis Park, from St. Louis Park to Minneapolis, from Minneapolis to Rochester, from Rochester to Albertville, from Albertville to Hutchinson; the trips to the twine ball, to Bockfest, to Holidazzle; the free tires I got out of that accident in Mankato; the $800 I got from the hail damage in Rochester; so many times I put gas in; the whale noise when the power steering fluid was low; the oil checks, water checks, oil changes, engine tune-ups from dad; the card I sent him the 2nd summer I owned the car that said that the oil changes were his way of saying he loved me even though he doesn't ever say so; the jobs I drove to: Videoland, the shoe factory, MSU, the group home, Pier 1, Thomson, Graywolf, Barnes & Noble, Capella (if I didn't take the bus), Century HS, tutoring in Rochester, Hutchinson HS; the tire changes; the time Ben helped me push it in the driveway in Mankato; the parking tickets in the driveway; the time we went in the ditch last year; the time in the Century parking lot when it wouldn't start; the time I packed up all my teaching office from Century; the pole I ran into last February that didn't even damage the front of the car; the month it spent outside Jenny's house, how I neglected yet loved her; the two plate numbers, how I got a parking ticket at RCTC right before the change and never paid it because the school wouldn't identify me; the passengers in the car, the people I drove around; the fact that where that car was was where I was, and if people wanted to know where I was, they just had to look for the purple Intrepid.

my milk issues

I don't like living alone for a number of reasons, but the worst reason is the problem with the milk. It goes sour so quickly, when I've only had 1/4 of it to drink. I buy another milk and then leave the old milk in the refrigerator because I don't want to dump it down the drain if I'm not taking the recycling out anytime soon. And I wonder if I just shouldn't start eating cereal for dinner, maybe.

Or other solutions would be--well, drinking more milk. Or just buying a cow, which would solve both the milk and living alone problem.

I've cooked for myself once, if you don't count macaroni and cheese or cheese bread with sauce, which I don't. The pecan chicken I tackled a couple of weeks ago. (Although I made it to use mushrooms in the refrigerator; when I cut the mushrooms, I found mold and reek.) It was great, but the chicken was $6 and I was mad that I had all that extra, and now I just have this piece in my freezer, and I never know when to really unthaw meat, or when I'll be home the next day.

I haven't hung things on my walls yet. In fact, I think it's gotten to the point where I just won't hang things on my wall. I'm comfortable in this little mess, now--the books in piles on the floor because I don't have and can't afford bookcases, the photo frames that need newly ordered photos that I can't afford yet hiding under my end tables.

I can't stop eating tiny candy bars in my classroom left over from treat day.

I don't want to buy a mop.

It's only 7:00?

It still is hard to come back to Hutchinson after letting myself escape for a couple of days. It's hard to say goodbye to the dog when I leave, it's hard to come home to only the sound of the TV. Snack packs for dinner. Saturday was an amazing day with my dad. We went to a car auction--to find the Intrepid's replacement--and even though we didn't get anything, the rush of an auction was fantastic. The men making football jokes, the bidder numbers, the fast-talk-fast-talk-fast-talk-talk-talking. A hispanic man named Angel with blue shoes and pleated pants running up to the bidders to help them get heard in the National Gaurd garage. The cars we came close to owning, the hundreds of dollars they went up after we pulled our bids out.

Next week, again. There's a state auction, my dad has graciously found a way to help me get the new car (which has caused me to feel as though I've digressed as an adult, but still find myself with no other options), and we're going to get a car. For cheap. Low mileage. Either one of the 170 that the state needs to get rid of, or from a private seller.

And so, the last week with the Intrepid is a bit bittersweet.

Am I going home too much. It's what I look forward to in the week now. I keep my cupboards a little more empty. I feel like I stay here and live there. Is this bad? If it gives me something to look forward to, if I like the warm house and the fireplace and eating dinner with other people, is it bad? Should I stop going? Can I keep going?

Will Rochester happen next year? Should it? Can it? If not, can I just get a job in the cities? I think I'd just like to go back to Minneapolis. I look through the Sunday paper, and I see all of the literary readings I'd like to attend. From Hutchinson, it's too far to drive for a Thursday night. From, say, Minnetonka, I can join books and bars and drink and talk fiction with probably awesome people. I can drive to St. Paul and go to Micawber's for a Graywolf reading, or to Minneapolis and Magers & Quinn so Kling can sign his second book for me. I see seeing Keillor at Common Good Books on a Tuesday night. I see this. I see this happening. I see drinks with a friend on a school night. I see a life. I see towing Darren along. I see 5:00 dinner and 6:30 movies and then just that little bit of grading I have to do and then going to bed. I see a small apartment, just Sundays at home and Friday and Saturday nights with a life, and entertaining friends in the city, and familiarity and driving just a small way to be at home, and wanting to stay, and wanting to cook. I see the start of some possible dating life. But is it just easier to imagine those things. Would I be in the same place. Would I just be back here but somewhere else.

I did nothing Halloween night, save grade papers while my sister answered the door for trick or treaters.

God, I don't know what to do with this loneliness. I watch TV, and a serious program comes on with an interview with a man named Mike Cox, and there's nobody to laugh with. How much easier it is to watch TV when you're here, when we make fun of it all, when it becomes comedy hour. When we make dinner and we drink all of the milk before it goes sour.

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.