On Duty

I [heart] computer lab days.

Crawled in to work this morning after falling asleep this morning after I got dressed, opened the door seconds before the last bell rang, my head still pounding and feeling a little woozy. I think there's a virus going around school.

Dragged my ass to the office after first period and asked for a substitute, only to be told that there were no substitutes available. Oh, MDC-PS, how we love your efficiency. This is merely one of the myriad disappointments in the past week that make me count down the days till vacation, cross off boxes on a calendar, and wonder what the hell my purpose is here.

Apathy runs rampant in high school, and Miami seems to breed it like mosquito larvae. "If you don't complete the quiz, I can't give you a grade." "If you don't hand in the homework, you get a zero." As with pre-mayan mathematics, the concept of zero seems to be missing from these children's mental capacity. They think only in letters: A B C D F. Sigh.

I hated it in high school, and I hate it now: I truly do not understand a lot of my students, and at the moment I'm of a mind to think that this is hindering my teaching abilities. It's been a long week, and my time in the computer lab is almost over, so I've got to wrap this up.

I guess I'll be back 6th period.

Fall? More figurative than literal.

Living in a tropical (no, literally) climate, seeing the passage of time is different than it is in places where you can see the seasons change. It's hard to remind myself that time is indeed going by when I can still wear all of my summer clothes and go to the beach on the weekend. If it doesn't rain, that is. It doesn't feel like fall, mostly because apart from an innate desire to wear autumnal colors and eat pumpkin products, I haven't noticed much of a change.

That said, the past three weeks have been full of changes.

Dave was in town for a glorious ten days, and I took my first personal day to make a weekend vacation to the Keys. I'd never really been on "vacation" as an adult before, so that was cool, if a littl weird. The Florida Keys are a beautiful place, but odd. I couldn't live there. We went snorkeling at Pennekamp again, swam at Bahia Honda, and explored Marthon, key hopping each night. I felt so far away from school, and un-teacher-like.

Then, a slap in the face with reality when school started up: parents' night, uniform proposals, extended school day/year, and a mandatory staff "pep rally" the day after grades were due. I can now say, with a large self-suffering sigh that I have experienced the end fo a grading period at a large public high school. One quarter of the year is over. Late, late night filling in bubble sheets with grades, attendance, "comments," and mercilessly failing 54 students. At first I felt kind of harsh about it, then all qualms vanished upon reading a lovely little note to "Ms. Williamson and her stank self...smells like nut-ass." Thank you, children, that's why I feel no remorse.

That happiness culminated with the "Zone" meeting, where the school board officials told us that we'd be 1. working longer hours, 2. working more days of the year, 3. have mandatory saturday staff development, 3. "should try and make the Zone like the PeaceCorps" and 4. need to deal with the lack of resources and large class sizes on our own. Meanwhile, they somehow managed to find enough money to stage a full theatrical song and dance number (no, literally) about why kids should learn how to read. That's funny, I really thought teachers were the people who wanted kids to read. Clearly we need more convincing. There was also a budget surplus enough to purchase over 5,000 "School Improvement Zone" polo shirts for every staff member, technicians and custodians included. So they can buy me a lame-ass polo shirt, but they can't buy BOOKS for my reading class? I was a little perplexed at that.

But dwelling on such subjects makes me bitter, so let's move on. Enough with the amargura.

Reportcards. Oh wait, that doesn't get any better either. I never thought that teachers could hate report card day as much as students did. There was a mutiny (no, literally) in one class, and I had another student actually throw a balled-up report card at me. I was a little incredulous. A flurry of parent conferences have ensued.

Last week was eternal, and to make up for it I pampered myself this weekend. Bought new teacher clothes and painted shelves in preparation for the completion of my decorating scheme in the bedroom. Also, along with the roommates, picked out bedding (finally, the leopard sheets are getting retired), so that's on its way. I feel so *adult* sometimes; new linens really made me happy. I also got fitted for glasses today, which pleases me to no end, even though they won't be ready until next week.

Finally, to end on a positive note, I've confirmed my next jaunt to Philly, and have two glassblowing sessions at Hot Soup scheduled, which makes my freaking day. Saw a double rainbow over the beach on Sunday, and most of the girls on the soccer team really like me. Did I mention that I'm assistant coaching soccer and not getting paid for it? Yeah, I am.

Did I also mention that I started a Master's degree program? Yeah, well, did that too. Sigh. But that's another story for another day.

Hidden Somewhere...

among graduate courses, report cards, staff development, soccer practices, traffic, commuting, TFA meetings, conferences, parent phone calls, seating charts, lesson plans, copying, errands, and groceries is my life.

maybe i can find it there somewhere.

Slippage

It's a Sunday night, 9:09 pm, and I've gotten a grand total of zero work done today. That's zero school related work done. I've been doing other sorts of work (i.e. errand running) all weekend long, and feel as though my time is slip-sliding away, true to the great Paul Simon song.

My (ex)roommate wrote one of her theses on slippage, and now it seems to be invading my life as well. True, hers was more concentrated on signs and signifiers, whereas mine exists on a temporal level. See: Wednesday afternoon.

I gave a colleague a ride home, the van slowly blundering over speed bumps in DPlace, thinking to myself "Wow, self, hump day is over! You only have two more days of school left this week." Then, after a 45 minute drive that should have taken 10-15, spending a *fortune* at kinkos because we have no copy machine at Central, grocery shopping, prescription filling, and a trip to Pier One to redeem a gift certificate, I felt so bitter that my evening had been robbed from me by Biscayne Boulevard traffic and necessary errands that the prospect of rising at 5:30 the next morning for school absolutely depressed me. I probably watched an episode of Alias to make myself feel better.

Scratch that, I watched TWO, because I printed out the other 120 pages worth of "A Scandal in Bohemia" on my own printer instead of being cowed by the price-gauging at Kinkos-FedEx. FedEx is officially on my shit list after the fiasco with my computer parts. I refuse to write about it, because I may become irate if I think about it too much.

In any case, what shocked me was the fact that mere hours before, the amalgam of time ThursdayFriday seemed easily surmountable; by the time I went to bed, it seemed like an eternity. On a good day, time passes in a regulated, normal fashion; on a bad day (which are maybe 4 out of 5), what should be an hour slides into 3, and what feels like 45 minutes shrinks into 5.

Then, we are presented with the concept of Neutral Time. This is when worries, schedules, and priorities are suspended. We shall henceforth classify Thursday as Neutral Time. 8 TFA-ers gathered in apt. 1 for a 90 minute, commercial free television broadcast of the history-making 2004 presidential debate at UM. There was much yelling, much laughter and scoffing (vociferous, he said vociferous; Poland?; WMD's, what that what we were looking for?), and even a bit of praise for the presidential-looking smirk of John Kerry. I felt excited about politics for the first time in ages.

We slip over to Neutral Time #2, see: Saturday.
Nearly an hour searching for the nebulous Ocean Bank to no avail, followed en seguida by my birthday pedicure (mmmm); soaking up rays on the beach; phone bank calling for the Florida Democratic Party..."there's a lot at stake this election year, and the Florida Democratic Party is working hard to make sure your vote counts"; DSW for very non-teacher shoes; shelving at Target; and finally a foray into the monstrosity of upper-class consumer culture known as Aventura Mall. There are 2 Gap's, two Abercrombies, and a caviar stand. Apple Computers got a little more of my paycheck, and then all of a sudden Saturdy was over.

All day I kept asking people what time it was, or checking my cell phone. Every time I was at least 2 hours off. The boy and I also slipped by each other, missing phone messages by 30 seconds or so, until 1:00 am when our conversation consisted mainly of me slipping slowly out of consciousness.

Sunday slid away while I painted and hung shelves, cleaned my entire room, swept the dust and litter from the floor, and attempted to sweep the copwebs from my brain. I'm not feeling really psyched about school lately, and I can think of about 80 reasons why, but I dont' really want to get into it.

What really gets to me is the feeling of tiredness that I can't seem to get rid of. This is compounded when I am contantly disrespected in my classroom, have no supplies or technical support, and don't really know how to solve any of these problems. I thought it would go away a little bit once I started reading things that I actually cared about, but that's pretty hard in my reading classes, and I haven't had the time nor the desire to really get into the Sherlock Holmes story.

I need to get with it, and I need to to it quickly.

Meanwhile, the cat sleeps on in a blissful oblivion, caring only that I want to cut his claws and wondering when he gets to eat next. I count the hours until I drive to Ft. Lauderdale to pick up the boy for fall break, and have to remember that I'm planning a personal day for next Monday. [guilty grin]. Lke I said, I guess it's time to get back to work. C'mon Thea, just a few more days.

I'm A Jetsetting Single Mom

Uh, if you consider "jetsetting" flying out of the E terminal on Southwest airlines, and if you consider Cervantes my kith and kin. The ever growing kitten is teething, so that's sort of exciting. I feel like such the parent; wasn't sure if the whole tooth losing thing was supposed to happen, so that was a little nerve-wracking, but the online vet's say that 6 months is when the baby teeth go. No worries. Disciplining is a bit of a hit and miss, but hey--that's the way it is in the classrooom too. Spraybottle and shouting at home, essays on "why you should pay attention to directions" and not-so-much shouting at school.

About that jetsetting then...Philly was wonderful. Wonderful.

Suburban consumerism at the Gap, no less; matinee showing of Garden State (Zack Braff is *too* cool); naps; sunny tree-lined walks; Haverford in its autumnal collegiate splendor (or something); stealing a kiss or two on the Main Line after dark (scandal!); lazy Sunday afternoons at Hanne's Breakfast Nook; Leeds suites?

Almost makes me forget Friday afternoon, when I literally stopped talking to my 6th period class because I couldn't not yell at them. All communication took place on the chalkboard..."because verbal communication has thus far been unsuccessful, I will now only write on the board. Progress reports went out two weeks ago; if you had any questions about your grades, I asked that you come see me. Very few people did..."

Almost makes me forget the eternal flying experience; note to self: NEVER fly out of Orlando ever again if possible. Ever, in my life. Over 6 children under 3, dirty diapers at takeoff, screaming children, irritating seat companions, *no bathrooms* argh.

It was 65 when I arrived in Pennsylvania, exhausted and emotional: positively arctic.

It is now 85 in Miami-Dade, and we ate outside on this fine Monday evening in shorts and tank tops at a swanky fast-food place called "Dogma." I sipped blissfully on an icy cold Corona as we reminded ourselves why we're not quitting our jobs. No definite conclusion was really reached, but man are those sunsets gorgeous.

Sigh, I guess I'm back in Florida. Back to work.

Two and Twenty

Wow, I'm old.

It being Sunday morning (afternoon) on the 19th of September, I have begun my 23rd year on the planet. In other words, I just turned 22. Saturday, the 18th of September, was an absolutely marvelous day. It began at midnight in the Aventura mall, after a "dinner" of cheesecake and a lovely, frivolous showing of Wimbleton complete with excessive sarcastic commentary from myself and Ana. Well done.

After the movie, 4 High School teachers piled on to a miniature racecar, plopped three quarters into a small slot on the dashboard, and rode away while the other moviegoers streamed out of the theaters. I sat demurely on the hood; let's just say others didn't quite behave in a manner befitting educational professionals. Oh, if the kids could see us now [grin]. At the end of our ride, exhausted from a long Friday at school and our exertions on the car, we extricated ourselves from the "vehicle" and observed that the weight limit on our toy was "75 pounds." Ha. Did I say I was old?

The day really officially began on Saturday morning, when I woke up at a beautiful 9:00 to fix myself a nice little breakfast before the trip. One hour later, 10 young teachers arrived at Key Largo, everyone humming the lyrics to "Kokomo" irritatingly under their breath. We piled out of the car at midday, the sun brillant overhead at Pennekamp State Park, and paid for our snorkel gear. Once we were slathered up with sunblock, the captain of "El Capitan" (how creative, no?) called the 12:00 trip to board. As we lined up by the dock, my phone began to ring, so I fumbled with my fins to answer it before whoever was on the other line hung up.

Dad said hello, offered birthday greetings, and laughed uproariously when I told him I was in the Keys about to go snorkeling. Hell yeah, southern Florida! El Capitan shoved off in the mangroves, among manatee signs and ibises, taking us eventually 5 miles off the coast to Banana Reef. We hooked up to a mooring buoy in aquamarine waters, slipped into fins, spit in our masks, and dropped into the salty water.

One of my irrational fears is deep water; that vertiginous blue space with motes of plankton reflecting light, soft sunbeams spiralling into darkness, and all the large creatures below scares the crap out of me. I was heartened to find that our reef was never more than about 28 feet deep, and I could always see either sand and seagrass or chunks of coral.

One thing that's odd about snorkeling though is that it's so non-auditory that it can disorient you completely. Once you go under water, you hear the sound of the sand in the current, and not much else. You can be looking below you, floating peacefully, and all of a sudden everyone has disappeared from your horizon. You spot a 4.5 foot barracuda below you, feel the adrenaline surge in your veins as your heartbeat picks up, foolishly beat your fins loudly in a circle to turn around, and you smack right into your snorkeling buddy who was right behind you the entire time. There were several of those moments yesterday, much swallowing of salt water after dives, and much fogging of masks forcing everyone up to the surface.

There were also angelfish (regular and blue), barracuda, sergeant majors, wrasse, parrotfish (striped and spotlight), blue tang, needlefish, minnows, and countless other small colorful yet unidentifiable beauties. I felt like the giddy little six year old that memorized all the tropical fish cards in preparation for our trip to St. John's and then refused to snorkel for a day because her mask leaked too much.

It was so refreshing, so NOT Miami, and so beautiful. Floating out on the water with hands dangling down into the depths, listeining to the sound of my own breathing through the snorkel tube, and marvelling at the abundance of life in the reef ebelow me was one of the best birthday presents ever. I'm so glad I went.

Icecream in the hot sun afterwards, and then a salty ride back to DPlace rounded out the afternoon before we all showered and prepared to head to the Carol City-Central football game at Traz Powell Stadium

NB: Cervantes is sprawled across my desk at the moment, with toes on the "y," hyphen, "r," and down arrow keys, his third eyelids glazed over, twitching contentedly in kitty dreamland. How cute is that? V. cute. Sometimes I forget he's such a psychopath. Yesterday, he opened up a Nature's Valley granola bar while we were gone, ripped the foil wrapper to shreds, and ate the entire 2 bars. Madness.

Anyway, so the TFA contingent broke up according to school loyalty: orange and black for Carol City, green and white on the Central side. The game began, the moldy concrete stadium filled with spectators, and the Miami Central Sr. High Rockets took the field. That's the football team, the dance team, the flag girls, the cheerleaders, the band, the coaches, and the waterboys. Let me say that for my first High School football game ever, it was quite the event. Scandalized by the Carol City dance team's uniform at halftime (transluscent white vinyl pants and matching crop tops), in hysterics over the spectacle of the entertaiment, we decided that we'd seen enough and headed home. Next time, I'm SO bringing my camera.

I arrived home to the smell of freshly baked cake, hung a picture with Mary, and invited over some of the D Place crowd for mudslides and conversation. Circa 11:30 the party died down after much hilarity with the cat, strong drinks, and butter pecan ice cream. A damn good night if I ever saw one.

Closed out the birthday feeling old again, after my positively juvenile activities of the night before, with a long-distance birthday greeting from Pennsylvania, dead asleep in my bed by 12:15. I had done the impossible, the unthinkable: I had a great birthday.

Now the grading encroaches on my Sunday afternoon, and the evening draws painfully close. I've got friends to call and thank, parents to greet, and much grading to be done by Monday, so I had better stop indulging myself, extricate the cat from my lap, and move on with my day, the birthday girl no longer =).

Aftermath

Yeah, about that. I've been a little out of touch lately, due to several external forces completely beyond my control, the first of which being a non-functional 5 year old mouse. Yes, that's right, the litle Macintosh rodent kicked the bucket circa Tuesday evening, leaving me lesson plan-less, and without any way to access the information in my computer. For the first time ever, I felt like Hansel in Zoolander wanting to get "inside the computer" and resort to physical violence.

Sigh. Also, Cervantes the devil cat, in his innovative search for amusement knocked the power source for the iBook off the bed and onto the tile floor one too many times, so that crapped out too. The entire DPlace network was down, sadness. It was strange, too, because for the first time in a while I felt like writing, getting things down on "paper." It has been nearly a year since I've put a literal pen to paper for the 'blog, and although I wanted to say something, I coudln't bring myself to go through the physical exertion of writing the old fashioned way. There's just something about the click clock of a keyboard that is music to my ears. This is why, in the absence of functional creative space, I felt stymied, stifled, squelched, and even thwarted with my lack of expression.

Random Aside: at some point this weekend, the gals in 266 were lamenting the diminishment of lexicons; I saw a big word and thought "gee, I used to use that all the time. I miss big words. I don't see them any more." The suitemates agreed, and DDH, in his GRE-studying glory, made me jealous of all the new words that he's learning. Thus (as evidenced by this post) I am now fighting an uphill battle to regain my lost vocabulary, and rescue the $50 words from the depths of underuse and neglect. Thank you, and you may continue with your regularly scheduled message.

I needed to vent about my surreal week, my surreal life, and explain why, in the midst of shittiness and long, long days at school, I was feeling happy for a bit. Perhaps my preemptory use of the past tense was a little fatalistic, but go with me for a bit.

The first two weeks of school dragged on pretty slowly, and somewhere along the way I started to get my kids a little more in line. It's exhausting to see the eensy weensy baby steps that each class goes through in terms of behavior management, and to realize that so much of how the school day goes is dependent on those 6 or 7 wild card kids. I selfishly got to wishing that they'd be in CSI (that's indoor suspension, in mystic code. Nobody is quite sure what it means) just so that my class would be better behaved. Then, there came the miraculous first paycheck and then suddenly life didn't seem so horrible. We painted the living room in South Beach hues, and I treated myself to a work outfit at Target (Tar-sshhhay). woo hoo, good times.

Impulsively bought a cat, continued to fumble through my Reading lessons, and finally started a real "story" in English. Yeah, too bad it's about nostalgia, a little difficult to explain to 14 year olds and chosen by the English department in spite of its 11th grade vocabulary. Whatever.

Week 3 began, with me counting the hours until 9 pm Wednesday night when a nonstop flight from Philly would touch down. Somehow, news of the hurricane leaked through my tunnel vision around Sunday, and before I knew it storm fever had hit South Florida. Without a television, using primarily the NOAA National Hurricane Center for information, we stayed pretty sane, but the rest of the city was high on media hype and dramatization. Then, to my great surprise, at 8:00 pm the school board announced that students would not report on Thursday or Friday. Halelujah!!! a five, count them, five day weekend (including Labor Day). Bear in mind, this is the longest I've had off of work in about 3 months, and Dave is there to spend it with me.

...and now for something completely different (a la Monty Python boys)
Thursday morning came, and Virginia and I slept in till a positively scandalous 7:00 am (normal wake-up is 5:15) and put trash bags on computers for about an hour until we got paid again and then skipped out of school. I proceeded to get gas for the car, buy a couple of jugs of water, and then take Dave to the beach. How hot is that? A hurricane day, and we get to go to the beach.

Friday was blissful, much sleeping and cooking, with Francis nowhere in sight. Candles were on the agenda, so we sniffed every scent in Target until I couldn't smell any more. We played hearts all afternoon with a Disney Princess card deck while singing the theme to Sleeping Beauty. Excuse me? Yes, that's right. Oh yeah, half of the D Place residents high-tailed it out of dodge, and they evacuated the beaches.

The entire series of events from Wednesday night to Tuesday morning was like a jumble of sureal ocurrences not at all related to my normal life. I got to cook again: real pasta sauces, whole *meals* instead of thrown-together one-serving sustenance-only things, and black beans and rice for our impromptu hurricane potluck (complete with *really* strong hurricanes [grin]), my first batch of cookies since arriving in Miami.

Sunday we spent trying like hell to make it to the water, but the fuzz was out everywhere, adn wouldn't even let us see the waves. Instead, we modified our plans and turned the day into a search for towelling to absorb the leak in the floor (which started mysteriously *before* the rains...), and a spray bottle with which to discipline the cat. Biting my ass while I'm sleeping is NOT acceptable behavior.

We spent one entire morning hanging pictures and listening to Duke Ellington; we spend an evening searching for the sketchiest liquor store on the planet (amaretto for the hurricanes); we walked to the park to see the wind pick up in the palm trees; we went running in the rain; we did no work whatsoever.

The entire city shut down on Saturday and Sunday, so that kind of sucked, and I think that everyone went a little stir crazy at the end, but all-in-all, a wonderful hurricane experience. Adding depth and irony to the non-sequiter nature of the break was the fact that we didn't even lose power. I spent most of the time watching the storm creep along the satellite tracking path online, perfectly safe from any meteorological harm. Bizarre, I tell you.

Sigh. And then Tuesday came, and I had to remember that I was a teacher again. More on this later, but unfortunately (or fortuitously) I am a teacher, and have lots of responsibilities that must be seen to this evening. I tell you, the paperwork never ends. If I have to fill out one more carbon copy form or Scantron sheet, I'm going to kill someone.