I have decided that I'm just not cut out for the service industry. Unfortunately, I am beginning to discover that EDUCATION is also included in this blanket category. Here I thought that my heaven-sent cushy summer job had something to do with "education" and "some of the brightest students," instead of those kids that couldn't get into an academic summer program and needed their parents to start signing checks before they could attach "college credit" to their college apps. This is highly specious college credit, if you didn't figure that out on the first try.
Let my preface my tirade by expressing my gratitude for being able to "live" in Spain for a month with relatively little cost. By "live" I of course mean spend a month in a semi-shady hotel room with the worst food on the Iberian Penninsula, and by relatively little cost, I would of course downplay my addiction to Spanish fashion in the form of Zara and locally made shoes.
My Spanish got a much-needed tune-up, and after nearly two years of disuse, that felt good. I also got to meet some pretty amazing Sevillanos, whom I know I will stay in touch with.
Let's recap: shoes, a few dresses, pleasant interactions with approximately 8 people, that's what I got out of my last visit to Spain.
The rest of my time was divided between being shot down by my boss after an attempt at "order" "discipline" or "planning," sitting in Starbucks to ensure that the chavales didn't drink/have sex/get lost in the 15 cubic meter commercial space, guiding groups of whiny children in 100+ degree heat, finding tiritas to cover the inevitable bloodied heel from four-inch stilettos, and/or searching for that place deep down within my soul from which I could drag up a plastered on "happy face" which would signal to both my employer and clients that I wished nothing more than to be at their beck and call for a mere pittance of a salary. Oh, and did I mention that I lost my cameras (yes, that's cameraS with a plural) in the JFK airport? There's something about Spain that sucks Nikon N80's into oblivion.
At typical evening waiting outside the illustrious Hotel Don Paco for the little angels.
Scheduled departure time: 7:45. At this time two children are outside the hotel ready to go: the alterna-chick from Manhattan, silent brooding boy, and the One-In-A-Million considerate JAP.
7:55- Andy, Brandi, Bobbi, Joey, Amy, and Sam (all girls) stumble downstairs in their too-short skirts, too-small shirts, and too-tall shoes. I mumble my daily futile plea, which as usual falls on deaf ears: "If you can't walk in your shoes, please don't wear them."
8:00- Said androgynously named bunch collectively ignore my well intentioned warning and proceed to take upwards of 30 pictures of themselves, in various groups and from various angles.
8:15- Myself, or one of the other illustrious leaders verbalizes the need to depart for restaurant.
8:16- Someone starts crying re: hair that has not been properly straightened; shoes not appropriate for venue (go figure!); Andy, Randi, Bobbi, Joey, Amy, or Sam is wearing part or all of my outfit and we cannot be seen together; Sandy (boy) is not here, and I can't eat without my boyfriend.
8:20- Crying person is appeased, per request of Program Director, by any means necessary.
8:30- Group departs on foot for dinner.
8:45- Group arrives at restaurant (normally a 5 minute walk, elongated beyond recognition due to stilettos) to greet angry restaurateur who has been ready for an hour. Staff member apologizes, then proceeds to apologize for rude behavior of students yelling at each other, scrambling for seats, and rearranging entire restaurant seating area to prohibit other customers from eating.
9:25- 8 bulimic girls visit bathroom one at a time (or all at once) to vomit up pre-paid dinner.
9:30- Staff member again apologizes to owner, waitstaff, and manager for group behavior and rudeness, then leaves with students.
9:50- Return to hotel so that children could dig up the sequestered alcohol from myriad corners of room and proceed to get drunk, while staff members patrol hallways and monitor activities.
To be fair, I could interact with most of the children (note caveat of *most*) on an individual basis; some of them were even smart/interesting, like the kid who worked three jobs to pay for his own trip, and was genuinely interesteed in Spanish history and culture. But there is still something so foul, so unbearable about the behavior of teens in large, uncontrolled masses that leaves a slime of filth on my psyche. It's not indelible, but neither is it removed with great facility.
The easiest way, and most pleasurable as I learned from one of my first teaching mentors, is to wash it down with a nice cold one. Unfortunately, this was contractually prohibited by my employer while I was within EU territory. Very quickly, however, we learned to adapt as the children did, sneaking a manzanilla, a cerveza, or a cubata from the bar when the little ones were at play. Ironically, I never snuck around to drink in high school, so this couldn't hearken back to old times of illicit drinking and partying, but even without that sort of nostalgia I felt immersed in that same awful, vindictive, manipulative, petty, stupid culture.
Ick.
I'm glad it's all over. Now, I think I'll walk downstairs to my own refrigerator, in the privacy of my adult living space and grab one (not five, not three, not ten, but ONE) cold beer to savor on a hot summer evening. That's what life should be like.
If, on a winter's night a traveler outside the town of Malbork, leaning from a steep slope without fear of wind or vertigo, looks down into the gathering shadow...on the carpet of leaves illuminated by the moon around an empty grave, what story there awaits its end? -italo calvino
Showing posts with label education. Show all posts
Showing posts with label education. Show all posts
Thursday, August 03, 2006
Tuesday, May 09, 2006
The end is near...
The month of May is swishing on by, and with it the end of my teaching career in Miami. I know it sounds a bit fatalistic, but I can safely say that I will never teach for Miami-Dade Public Schools after May 31st of this year. Summer is fast approaching; in the 305, this means palpably humid afternoons, a searing summer sun, and the softly beckoning beach. I have indulged in several of these summer pleasures over the past few weekends, heralding the end of spring and the beginning of my long-anticipated freedom. Added to that was the commencement of the Summer Movie Season: the release (and subsequent opening-night viewing) of M:I 3, c/o everyone's favorite screenwriter, J.J. Abrams. Bravo, J.J., you made a movie with Tom Cruise in it, and people want to see it anyway!
Standing outside of Tamarind Thai last night, the four inhabitants of apartment 266 took a moment to gaze around in the breezy crepuscular Normandy air, bewildered by the circumstances for our reunion. Teach for America sponsored a "Reflect and Reconnect" dinner featuring Thai food and education-related talking points. It was hard to believe that we were finally at an end of year event, let alone an end of committment event. Alumni Induction next weekend is going to be positively surreal. It was good to see the twenty-odd other '04 corps members who have stuck it out this far, for whatever reason. Carlos and I decided that a lot of the reason that some of us are still working seems to be perverse stubbornness. I'm okay with that. If anything, I'm too damn stubborn to quit, even in the face of destruction and calamity. Hyperbolic conditions, you say? Well, these things seem to follow me wherever I go, tagging along doggedly behind the best of my intentions. See: "Reflect and Reconnect" Dinner. Of course, everything seems to be going along swimmingly, and then, because it's a large party and restaurants are rarely careful, I discover that I've eaten a peanut. While all of this wonderful and interesting conversation is going around me, there I am sitting in my chair staring at the wall for twenty minutes waiting for the benadryl do alleviate the constricting pain in my chest. Boo.
I was really sad at work today, and it took me a little while to figure out why. Part of it was probably the aftereffects of my emergency antihistamine last night, but there were other factors involved as well. Now don't get my wrong; this melancholy mood has absolutely nothing to do with the fact that I'm leaving Miami Central (South), or that I'm moving from the Sunshine State and its turquoise waters. It has more to do with things unravelling around me. I mean unravelling in the sense of decadence and downfall, not psychologically.
As part of our end of the year project in my reading classes, I wanted the kids to read a graphic novel. There are a bunch of them in the Read 180 library, but none of them are particularly spectacular, as they are merely adaptations of classic novels. They're making their own books, and as an accompaniament they are reading Maus, everyone's favorite graphic novel (and really the only one I know of). I spent a boatload of my own money on the books, mostly because I felt strongly that my students should read them. There was a bout of antisemitism on campus: swastikas on the Jewish teacher's desk, lots of throwing around the term Nazi without really knowing what it means, just more evidence of the childrens' lack of a sense of history. In any case, Maus was a success, and a bunch of students really took to it. One of them, A., has literally slept through 70% of my classes. He comes in gregariously, half-asses his Do Now assignment, usually yells at me, then falls immediately to sleep in a petulant huff. He is one of the most childish teenagers that I teach. On Friday, A. fell asleep again, but this time he did it on a copy of Maus. We've had severaly chats about how one treats a book, so I was pretty unsympathetic when he woke up at the end of class. A split second after waking up, I mention that it's time to leave, and probably had something flippant to say like "Good morning, A." A split second later, he begins to shower insults at me from across the room. Impassively, I write down everything he says, words and phrases loosely strung together with interjections such as "What, huh, you speechless! Yeah, huh, you ain't got nuthin' to say to that?" Yes, A., I've got absolutely nothing to say. It's all being written down for your referral.
An hour later, A. and I crossed paths near the AP's office. No more of the blustering aggressive male; A. was bawling his eyes out with his suspension papers in his hand. Pathetic.
This morning, easing out of last night's Benadryl, I taped back together the 35 pages that had fallen out of Maus I after A. broke the spine during his nap. For whatever reason, it made me incredibly depressed.
3rd Period's final SRI scores also depressed me. Every student made at least 1 year's learning gains, but only 55% made significant gains. 5th Period redeemed the day, wiht an astounding 92% of the students with 2 years's learning gains, and a few kids haven't even taken the test.
Still, there are other demolition projects around me that just make me so melancholy. Biscayne Boulevard, the city's major throughfare east of 95, has been under construction since I set eyes on Miami. September '04 the cones went up, and right now a 2.5 mile stretch right next to our apartment is being peeled away from the surface of the earth. The chaos might be justified if it were for some larger purpose; if the streets were being widened, left turn lanes added, or some sort of functional rehabilitation were going on, I would bite my tongue and keep the proverbial stiff upper lip. But the only reason that Biscayne is being resurfaced is to put an island of royal palm trees down the middle of it. Surreptitiously, the irrigation and drainage system will be marginally improved, but the ostensible purpose is the palm trees. Why, in a city which is so desperately in need of real public transportation, are hundreds of millions of dollars being wasted on a *cosmetic* overhaul of Biscayne?!? It baffles me with its absurdity. The shallowness of the entire project screams "Miami," so I shouldn't be too surprised. Total wanton destruction for no purpose. It's not even the cathartic sort of demolition that breaks ground for new growth and creates the possibility for something better to take the place of the old fashioned, the outmoded, the obsolete. This is no cleansing purge that precedes a rebirth, it's an immense waste of time to perpetuate an already doomed system. Why does it seem as if I'm the only person who thinks this is a bad idea? Couldn't maybe, the city planners, whose job it is to make the city function better, have anticipated these issues? Apparently not. [NB: best line, hands down, in MI:3 :"Don't interrupt me when I'm asking rhetorical questions!" ha! a man after my own heart.]
Ick.
Furthermore, there are several students in my classes who are engaged in the process of self-destruction of various sorts. Both of them are so different, but the end result is the same.
The first is a girl, we'll just call her Nasty. Nasty is a truly special sort of person, exemplified in the manner in which I met her. She did not choose to attend school for the first three months, then the truancy officer showed up at her residence threatening reprisals, so she attends my 8th period class. She arrives 10 minutes late, I ask who the hell she is, and she sits down. I explain the ridiculously simple premise of the class: read for 35 minutes each day, and she proceeds to take out a bottle of hooker-hot-pink nailpolish to paint her nails. She has done a total of three assignments since this first precious day of class. In addition to frequently missing classes, Nasty likes to express herself primarily with profanity. She once put gum in my water bottle, convinced a student to put gum in my hair, and put gum on my chair. She's also been pregnant and had an abortion. While she was visibly pregnant, she wore crop tops to show off her growing abdomen. How classy, no? On the same Friday when A. broke my book, Nasty spent 25 minutes of 8th period on a narrative explaining how one of her friends, who gives head to various ex-students of mine from last year, was jumped in the park. She said the word "fuck" 25 times, and "bitch" 19 times. I am sure that I can recall a conversation in which my vocabulary was at least that colorful, but the key difference here is that I have the mental capacity to choose whether or not to use such language, while Nasty's range of diction is somewhat limited.
Nasty is morally, physically, sexually, verbally, socially, academically, and intellectually disgusting...and people like her! The truly tragic part of this whole ordeal, however, is that a large quantity of the female population idolizes her. Children will do whatever she tells them to, just to win her favor. Girls and boys grovel at her Steve Madden clad feet, worship her bleached blonde weave. Her power over lesser minds is astounding, so much so that it is difficult to catch her actually doing anything wrong except for exuding an air of putrescent morality. She coerces, connives, betrays, and cheats her way through the school day, using class time as social hour and added ammunition for her already deplorable reputation. What a joy.
The other student who has engaged in an impressive masochistic self-destruction over the past few months is Boy 2 (see post of February 22nd). He went from being one of my most involved, athletic, energetic, enthusiastic, and intelligent students to being the most apathetic student and worst disruption in the class. Case in point: he just made a farting noise behind my back. What scares me is that after several parent conferences and multiple referrals, he's just getting worse. It's not just academically either. He went from a playful jokester to an intentionally hurtful tormentor. He doesn't even take care of himself either. his shoes are dirty, his clothes don't match, and he doesn't cut his hair. It's bizarre to see this kind of academic and spiritual destruction manifest itself physically, but in his case it's true. He's failing both of my classes right now, when he used to be close to an A. He gets suspended all the time, fights in between classes, and sometimes doesn't even bother to show up to school. If I weren't so tired, I would want to cry.
I'm at the end of my patience, the end of my energy, and the end of my commitment to Teach for America. It's time for all of this to be over so that I can move on with my life. There are so few kids that I will genuinely miss, and there's nothing to keep me here any more. I don't feel like I'm losing a connection to the school or to the mission to improve education, because that all ended for me when I shipped off to this damn sattelite campus. I had to say goodbye last year, and this entire school year has been more like a state of limbo than an actual part of my life. Being bounced from place to place, administrator to administrator, policy to policy, it just exemplifies the lack of continuity which destroys these childrens' educations. On days like today, and days like every school day for the past three weeks, it makes me so angry.
The irony of it all is that this year I truly did teach my students. Most of my kids achieved amazing things. With the exception of a small group of ignorant, bigoted, pieces of shit (who happen to be in my classroom right now overshadowing the decent kids), they tried hard and worked to their potential despite incredible odds. I just wish they saw that too.
I'm ready to be in a place where I don't have to wash my hands every 2 hours because of the filth all around me. I'm ready to be able to leave my lunch in the closet without finding a roach in it. I'm ready to not hear the word "gay" every thirty seconds used as an insult. I'm ready to not have to tell children to stop hitting each other. I'm ready to not have to wake up at 6:00 in the morning. I'm ready to not have to tell anyone "how many grades is this worth?" And I am certainly ready to leave Miami Central.
I'm ready for it all to be over. The end is near, so near that I can taste it. Please, could you hurry it up a bit?
Standing outside of Tamarind Thai last night, the four inhabitants of apartment 266 took a moment to gaze around in the breezy crepuscular Normandy air, bewildered by the circumstances for our reunion. Teach for America sponsored a "Reflect and Reconnect" dinner featuring Thai food and education-related talking points. It was hard to believe that we were finally at an end of year event, let alone an end of committment event. Alumni Induction next weekend is going to be positively surreal. It was good to see the twenty-odd other '04 corps members who have stuck it out this far, for whatever reason. Carlos and I decided that a lot of the reason that some of us are still working seems to be perverse stubbornness. I'm okay with that. If anything, I'm too damn stubborn to quit, even in the face of destruction and calamity. Hyperbolic conditions, you say? Well, these things seem to follow me wherever I go, tagging along doggedly behind the best of my intentions. See: "Reflect and Reconnect" Dinner. Of course, everything seems to be going along swimmingly, and then, because it's a large party and restaurants are rarely careful, I discover that I've eaten a peanut. While all of this wonderful and interesting conversation is going around me, there I am sitting in my chair staring at the wall for twenty minutes waiting for the benadryl do alleviate the constricting pain in my chest. Boo.
I was really sad at work today, and it took me a little while to figure out why. Part of it was probably the aftereffects of my emergency antihistamine last night, but there were other factors involved as well. Now don't get my wrong; this melancholy mood has absolutely nothing to do with the fact that I'm leaving Miami Central (South), or that I'm moving from the Sunshine State and its turquoise waters. It has more to do with things unravelling around me. I mean unravelling in the sense of decadence and downfall, not psychologically.
As part of our end of the year project in my reading classes, I wanted the kids to read a graphic novel. There are a bunch of them in the Read 180 library, but none of them are particularly spectacular, as they are merely adaptations of classic novels. They're making their own books, and as an accompaniament they are reading Maus, everyone's favorite graphic novel (and really the only one I know of). I spent a boatload of my own money on the books, mostly because I felt strongly that my students should read them. There was a bout of antisemitism on campus: swastikas on the Jewish teacher's desk, lots of throwing around the term Nazi without really knowing what it means, just more evidence of the childrens' lack of a sense of history. In any case, Maus was a success, and a bunch of students really took to it. One of them, A., has literally slept through 70% of my classes. He comes in gregariously, half-asses his Do Now assignment, usually yells at me, then falls immediately to sleep in a petulant huff. He is one of the most childish teenagers that I teach. On Friday, A. fell asleep again, but this time he did it on a copy of Maus. We've had severaly chats about how one treats a book, so I was pretty unsympathetic when he woke up at the end of class. A split second after waking up, I mention that it's time to leave, and probably had something flippant to say like "Good morning, A." A split second later, he begins to shower insults at me from across the room. Impassively, I write down everything he says, words and phrases loosely strung together with interjections such as "What, huh, you speechless! Yeah, huh, you ain't got nuthin' to say to that?" Yes, A., I've got absolutely nothing to say. It's all being written down for your referral.
An hour later, A. and I crossed paths near the AP's office. No more of the blustering aggressive male; A. was bawling his eyes out with his suspension papers in his hand. Pathetic.
This morning, easing out of last night's Benadryl, I taped back together the 35 pages that had fallen out of Maus I after A. broke the spine during his nap. For whatever reason, it made me incredibly depressed.
3rd Period's final SRI scores also depressed me. Every student made at least 1 year's learning gains, but only 55% made significant gains. 5th Period redeemed the day, wiht an astounding 92% of the students with 2 years's learning gains, and a few kids haven't even taken the test.
Still, there are other demolition projects around me that just make me so melancholy. Biscayne Boulevard, the city's major throughfare east of 95, has been under construction since I set eyes on Miami. September '04 the cones went up, and right now a 2.5 mile stretch right next to our apartment is being peeled away from the surface of the earth. The chaos might be justified if it were for some larger purpose; if the streets were being widened, left turn lanes added, or some sort of functional rehabilitation were going on, I would bite my tongue and keep the proverbial stiff upper lip. But the only reason that Biscayne is being resurfaced is to put an island of royal palm trees down the middle of it. Surreptitiously, the irrigation and drainage system will be marginally improved, but the ostensible purpose is the palm trees. Why, in a city which is so desperately in need of real public transportation, are hundreds of millions of dollars being wasted on a *cosmetic* overhaul of Biscayne?!? It baffles me with its absurdity. The shallowness of the entire project screams "Miami," so I shouldn't be too surprised. Total wanton destruction for no purpose. It's not even the cathartic sort of demolition that breaks ground for new growth and creates the possibility for something better to take the place of the old fashioned, the outmoded, the obsolete. This is no cleansing purge that precedes a rebirth, it's an immense waste of time to perpetuate an already doomed system. Why does it seem as if I'm the only person who thinks this is a bad idea? Couldn't maybe, the city planners, whose job it is to make the city function better, have anticipated these issues? Apparently not. [NB: best line, hands down, in MI:3 :"Don't interrupt me when I'm asking rhetorical questions!" ha! a man after my own heart.]
Ick.
Furthermore, there are several students in my classes who are engaged in the process of self-destruction of various sorts. Both of them are so different, but the end result is the same.
The first is a girl, we'll just call her Nasty. Nasty is a truly special sort of person, exemplified in the manner in which I met her. She did not choose to attend school for the first three months, then the truancy officer showed up at her residence threatening reprisals, so she attends my 8th period class. She arrives 10 minutes late, I ask who the hell she is, and she sits down. I explain the ridiculously simple premise of the class: read for 35 minutes each day, and she proceeds to take out a bottle of hooker-hot-pink nailpolish to paint her nails. She has done a total of three assignments since this first precious day of class. In addition to frequently missing classes, Nasty likes to express herself primarily with profanity. She once put gum in my water bottle, convinced a student to put gum in my hair, and put gum on my chair. She's also been pregnant and had an abortion. While she was visibly pregnant, she wore crop tops to show off her growing abdomen. How classy, no? On the same Friday when A. broke my book, Nasty spent 25 minutes of 8th period on a narrative explaining how one of her friends, who gives head to various ex-students of mine from last year, was jumped in the park. She said the word "fuck" 25 times, and "bitch" 19 times. I am sure that I can recall a conversation in which my vocabulary was at least that colorful, but the key difference here is that I have the mental capacity to choose whether or not to use such language, while Nasty's range of diction is somewhat limited.
Nasty is morally, physically, sexually, verbally, socially, academically, and intellectually disgusting...and people like her! The truly tragic part of this whole ordeal, however, is that a large quantity of the female population idolizes her. Children will do whatever she tells them to, just to win her favor. Girls and boys grovel at her Steve Madden clad feet, worship her bleached blonde weave. Her power over lesser minds is astounding, so much so that it is difficult to catch her actually doing anything wrong except for exuding an air of putrescent morality. She coerces, connives, betrays, and cheats her way through the school day, using class time as social hour and added ammunition for her already deplorable reputation. What a joy.
The other student who has engaged in an impressive masochistic self-destruction over the past few months is Boy 2 (see post of February 22nd). He went from being one of my most involved, athletic, energetic, enthusiastic, and intelligent students to being the most apathetic student and worst disruption in the class. Case in point: he just made a farting noise behind my back. What scares me is that after several parent conferences and multiple referrals, he's just getting worse. It's not just academically either. He went from a playful jokester to an intentionally hurtful tormentor. He doesn't even take care of himself either. his shoes are dirty, his clothes don't match, and he doesn't cut his hair. It's bizarre to see this kind of academic and spiritual destruction manifest itself physically, but in his case it's true. He's failing both of my classes right now, when he used to be close to an A. He gets suspended all the time, fights in between classes, and sometimes doesn't even bother to show up to school. If I weren't so tired, I would want to cry.
I'm at the end of my patience, the end of my energy, and the end of my commitment to Teach for America. It's time for all of this to be over so that I can move on with my life. There are so few kids that I will genuinely miss, and there's nothing to keep me here any more. I don't feel like I'm losing a connection to the school or to the mission to improve education, because that all ended for me when I shipped off to this damn sattelite campus. I had to say goodbye last year, and this entire school year has been more like a state of limbo than an actual part of my life. Being bounced from place to place, administrator to administrator, policy to policy, it just exemplifies the lack of continuity which destroys these childrens' educations. On days like today, and days like every school day for the past three weeks, it makes me so angry.
The irony of it all is that this year I truly did teach my students. Most of my kids achieved amazing things. With the exception of a small group of ignorant, bigoted, pieces of shit (who happen to be in my classroom right now overshadowing the decent kids), they tried hard and worked to their potential despite incredible odds. I just wish they saw that too.
I'm ready to be in a place where I don't have to wash my hands every 2 hours because of the filth all around me. I'm ready to be able to leave my lunch in the closet without finding a roach in it. I'm ready to not hear the word "gay" every thirty seconds used as an insult. I'm ready to not have to tell children to stop hitting each other. I'm ready to not have to wake up at 6:00 in the morning. I'm ready to not have to tell anyone "how many grades is this worth?" And I am certainly ready to leave Miami Central.
I'm ready for it all to be over. The end is near, so near that I can taste it. Please, could you hurry it up a bit?
Wednesday, February 22, 2006
Not In My Job Description
Carrying along the theme of "responsibility" which is most salient these days, I find myself consistently redefining what my job is. If I were to write a true and faithful description of the responsibilities that I have incurred as a result of my position in the Miami-Dade County Public School system, my resume would more resemble a gangsta novel than a non-fiction text. Unfortunately, that is the reality of working at a job in an underresourced, understaffed, underregulated, and overlooked low-income school. Several events serve as fantastic exemplars of these types of activities. The down side of trying to be a responsible person is that you end up picking up the slack when other people can't seem to do the things that they are required to do at their job.
For some reason, there seems to be a miscommunication about what is and is not part of different staff members' job description, creating confusion and often chaos when incompetant assholes decide that their job includes 2 hour lunch breaks, taunting students, and encouraging physical violence. Apparently, these tasks are the purview of the high school Security Guard, unbeknownst to me. Really, someone should send out a memo about modified job responsibilities to clue in the rest of the school, just so we're all on the same page.
Two Thursdays ago, before the rash of suspensions that spread through campus quicker than syphilis British Renaissance royalty, I wish people could have just done their jobs. My job, in case I haven't been explicitly clear, is that of a teacher. This means I am responsible for maintaining certain documentation, controlling the classroom, delivering instruction, and assessing my students. While I was in the process of doing my job, two of my little darlings decided to get into a shouting match.
The smaller of the two, a 4' 4" young man who likes to talk a lot of smack, may or may not have instigated the confrontation when he came into class late. Regardless of whomever was responsible for starting the conflict, he and his antagonist, a girl expelled from her previous high school for pulling a knife during a fight, began to abuse each other verbally. As with many confrontations at my school, most of this centered around whether or not each child was ready to "step," or engage in a physical fight. Also, as can be expected, the insults soon degenerated into the steadfast "yo' mama" comments. The most colorful of these I believe was "That's yo' mama's pussy that smells stank."
After taking the steps necessary to fulfill my job requirements, I write down what each child is yelling at each other, give them verbal warnings, and confront them both with what they have said. Keep in mind, I would have to be straight up insane to approach either student physically in order to separate them from each other. That is most definitely not within my rights or responsibilities as a classroom teacher. That's why we have another staff member on campus called a "Security Guard" who is allowed to physically remove a student from class. Playing by the book (stupid Thea, when will you learn how infrequently this ever has positive results?), I walk outside and request that the Security Guard remove the more aggressive female student from the class.
I'm not an expert on the best-practices for Security Guards, but I'm going to hazard a guess that when a young lady is screaming about how stank somebody's mama's pussy is, calling her name softly from outside the door is not going to be your most effective strategy for dissipating the conflict.
Hey, guess what, I was right.
As I turned my back from the incident to grab a referral form from inside my desk, the girl gets up out of her seat, walks over to the boy sitting at his computer, and punches him in the head. Not even knowing what to do, the attacked kid tries to hide against the computer. At this point, the security guard has done nothing. Incredulous, I run across the room and frantically try to think of what I need to do to solve the crisis. I'm not thinking "Hey, that fat fuck over in the corner should be handling this" or "Why doesn't that useless ignorant sorry excuse for a sentient being move his lazy ass." I'm thinking "Fuck. Fuck. Fuck." With these eloquent words rolling around in my head, the larger girl takes the boy's head and slams it into the computer monitor. The monitor slides off onto the table, and my first thought is not "Wow, I really shouldn't have to deal with this" or "Oh, I'm sure the security guard is rushing over to intervene." It's "They're going to fire me for letting the kids break computer equipment."
Then, the boy starts to fight back. Both fall to the floor, and my fear of reprimand from the administration gives way to my very real concern for both students' safety. I kick my way into the fight, trying to separate the two. As they writhe away from each other and stand up, still yelling nonsense about somebody's mamma, they fly at each other again, knocking over three desks and a chair, nearly flattening two frightened timid girls. I grab one student's shoulders, and another student intervenes to grab the other belligerant one. I can't even remember which was which.
Now that the immediate violence has abated, I whip around to assess the classroom situation with as much rapidity as I can manage. What should I see but our security guard grinning at the doorway, arms crossed over his rolling gut.
Apparently, he needs a friendly reminder about what is and is not in HIS job description. Call me a lunatic, but I'm going to guess that it was his responsibility, not that of a TEACHER and a STUDENT to break up the fight in the classroom and ensure everyone else's safety. If I do nothing else this year, I will get this man fired. He is the scum of the earth, and a fantastic example of why Miami-Dade Public Schools are fucked. Speaking purely from my own personal anecdotal experience, our school is falling down a long spiral into whatever sort hell your spirituality permits you to imagine: the deep, dark, fiery pits of it.
This was a Thursday, about ten days ago. Mercifully, I'd planned a trip to New York that weekend, and was able to escape the torments of Miami's blistering inferno...for the biggest blizzard to hit Manhattan in recorded history. See, I didn't know it, but I'm actually a well-refined magnet for calamity, natural disasters included. Nearly every day since then, there has been some sort of traumatic event at school, save today.
On Monday, the school board voted to change the calendar, moving the semester up two weeks, making failure notices due in three days. For the next three days, I spent 11 hours at school. I spent more time on 35th Avenue than I spent in my own damn house. On Wednesday, a student in my 4th period stabbed a boy in the arm with a pencil. He was bleeding. Now, I officially reached the end of my rope. Fraying fibers, rope burn, grasping frantically for sanity. My job is no longer teaching, but crowd control. I shut down into war mode...
Phase I 13:00 casualties at zero, maintain position and await commands from headquarters.
13:35 combat site under lockdown, following aggressive action
Phase II 14:30, new bogies intercepted, 18 incoming hostiles
RETREAT!! 15:35 RETREAT TO BASE!!!
Base is now Starbucks, where I reconvene and attempt to process the events of the afternoon. I will narrate them thus:
Girl 2 (not Girl 1 who attacked small boy at computer on Thursday, but different, wholly unrelated girl) says something like "get away from me, little bitch" to Boy 2 (not small boy beaten up Thursday, but singularly different boy) who stands over her at a table. Boy 2 does not move, but Girl 3 stands up out of seat and begins screaming. Girl 3, hitherto to be known as PPLPOSDC (psychotic pathological liar piece of shit devil child) gesticulates wildly while yelling "Now, I know you heard that! That's a referral! [Girl 1] was cussin'! If that was me, you'd a wrote me up! Ms. Williamson, I know you heard that!"
Thanks. Caught that the first time.
Girl 3 is now officially hysterical, so I ask both her and Boy 2 to come outside to discuss their behavior. On his way out, I see blood (albeit a small amount) dripping from his arm. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Now, in the less than a week, blood has been spilled in my classroom. I probably saw more bodily fluids that week than my roommate's boyfriend, who is in medical school. PPLPOSDC continues to yell at me outside the classroom, and considering how this has happened at least 12 times so far this school year, I decide that it's not my job to stand there and be verbally abused by a spoiled 16 year old, so I call security.
Ha.
Did I say call security? I should clarify. By "call" I mean raise the volume of my voice, since there are no phones and no electronic means of communication with either the Central South Office or the security guard, incompetent fuck that he is. I ask an administrator visiting from the Main Campus where I might be able to find someone to take this screaming child out of my presence, and he tells me, I kid you not "I'm looking for him too. He's been missing for an hour." In disbelief, I spend a fraction of a second pondering the ironic fact that Girl 3 hadn't even been the cause of this fucked-up situation which had now escalated into a full-scale conflict, then begin to scream myself. Because that is the only recourse that I have left, when all of the proper steps and countermeasures in my job description have failed or were never even there as options as the first place. When I can't do my job, when I am completely powerless and want nothing more in the world than to ball up my fist, take aim, and land my knuckles right on her mean, abusive, deceitful lips, I scream.
"S-E-C-U-R-I-T-Y"
I walk to the corner so that my words rattle the paint flakes on the concrete walls, and force all my anger out through my lungs: "CAN I P-L-E-A-S-E get some SECURITY?"
I bellow down the other corridor, towards the Madison office: "SECURITYYYYYYYYYYYYY"
Finally, a security guard employed by the Middle school which does not employ me took PPLPOSDC away so that I could deal with the sheepishly bleeding Boy 2 sitting on the bench. I talk to him about why he got stabbed with a pencil, and by now it's almost time to switch classes. My kids come out of the classroom, the halls flood, and PPLPOSDC comes back along with the Madison security guard. I tell both of them, as is well within my rights as a teacher, that I will not speak with her until I see a parent, so she should please leave the room.
Fuming, I resume the duties in my contract, to fill out a 4-ply carbon copy "SCAM," or behavior referral on all three students: Girl 2, Boy 2, and now PPLPOSDC. A good ten minutes later, now nearly an hour since the original pencil-stabbing took place, Fat Ass (as I now call Mr. B---, our friendly, useful security guard) comes into my class.
His words, concise and to the point: "Uh, somebody said you needed me?"
Slowly pulling my seething eyes up from the third referral form to inform him "I needed you twenty minutes ago, when a student was screaming in my face. It's under control now."
From this moment on, when my concentration returned to the green paper underneath my ballpoint pen, Mr. B--- has ceased to exist on the campus. I do not look at him, I do not acknowledge the fact that he is a group of cells which intakes oxygen and releases carbon dioxide, he is not my peer nor my colleague like the custodians, the secretaries, the administrators, or the students who do their jobs. If you can't figure out how to do your fucking job, then I'll do it for you, AND mine too. It's not like I've never had to do that before.
For some reason, there seems to be a miscommunication about what is and is not part of different staff members' job description, creating confusion and often chaos when incompetant assholes decide that their job includes 2 hour lunch breaks, taunting students, and encouraging physical violence. Apparently, these tasks are the purview of the high school Security Guard, unbeknownst to me. Really, someone should send out a memo about modified job responsibilities to clue in the rest of the school, just so we're all on the same page.
Two Thursdays ago, before the rash of suspensions that spread through campus quicker than syphilis British Renaissance royalty, I wish people could have just done their jobs. My job, in case I haven't been explicitly clear, is that of a teacher. This means I am responsible for maintaining certain documentation, controlling the classroom, delivering instruction, and assessing my students. While I was in the process of doing my job, two of my little darlings decided to get into a shouting match.
The smaller of the two, a 4' 4" young man who likes to talk a lot of smack, may or may not have instigated the confrontation when he came into class late. Regardless of whomever was responsible for starting the conflict, he and his antagonist, a girl expelled from her previous high school for pulling a knife during a fight, began to abuse each other verbally. As with many confrontations at my school, most of this centered around whether or not each child was ready to "step," or engage in a physical fight. Also, as can be expected, the insults soon degenerated into the steadfast "yo' mama" comments. The most colorful of these I believe was "That's yo' mama's pussy that smells stank."
After taking the steps necessary to fulfill my job requirements, I write down what each child is yelling at each other, give them verbal warnings, and confront them both with what they have said. Keep in mind, I would have to be straight up insane to approach either student physically in order to separate them from each other. That is most definitely not within my rights or responsibilities as a classroom teacher. That's why we have another staff member on campus called a "Security Guard" who is allowed to physically remove a student from class. Playing by the book (stupid Thea, when will you learn how infrequently this ever has positive results?), I walk outside and request that the Security Guard remove the more aggressive female student from the class.
I'm not an expert on the best-practices for Security Guards, but I'm going to hazard a guess that when a young lady is screaming about how stank somebody's mama's pussy is, calling her name softly from outside the door is not going to be your most effective strategy for dissipating the conflict.
Hey, guess what, I was right.
As I turned my back from the incident to grab a referral form from inside my desk, the girl gets up out of her seat, walks over to the boy sitting at his computer, and punches him in the head. Not even knowing what to do, the attacked kid tries to hide against the computer. At this point, the security guard has done nothing. Incredulous, I run across the room and frantically try to think of what I need to do to solve the crisis. I'm not thinking "Hey, that fat fuck over in the corner should be handling this" or "Why doesn't that useless ignorant sorry excuse for a sentient being move his lazy ass." I'm thinking "Fuck. Fuck. Fuck." With these eloquent words rolling around in my head, the larger girl takes the boy's head and slams it into the computer monitor. The monitor slides off onto the table, and my first thought is not "Wow, I really shouldn't have to deal with this" or "Oh, I'm sure the security guard is rushing over to intervene." It's "They're going to fire me for letting the kids break computer equipment."
Then, the boy starts to fight back. Both fall to the floor, and my fear of reprimand from the administration gives way to my very real concern for both students' safety. I kick my way into the fight, trying to separate the two. As they writhe away from each other and stand up, still yelling nonsense about somebody's mamma, they fly at each other again, knocking over three desks and a chair, nearly flattening two frightened timid girls. I grab one student's shoulders, and another student intervenes to grab the other belligerant one. I can't even remember which was which.
Now that the immediate violence has abated, I whip around to assess the classroom situation with as much rapidity as I can manage. What should I see but our security guard grinning at the doorway, arms crossed over his rolling gut.
Apparently, he needs a friendly reminder about what is and is not in HIS job description. Call me a lunatic, but I'm going to guess that it was his responsibility, not that of a TEACHER and a STUDENT to break up the fight in the classroom and ensure everyone else's safety. If I do nothing else this year, I will get this man fired. He is the scum of the earth, and a fantastic example of why Miami-Dade Public Schools are fucked. Speaking purely from my own personal anecdotal experience, our school is falling down a long spiral into whatever sort hell your spirituality permits you to imagine: the deep, dark, fiery pits of it.
This was a Thursday, about ten days ago. Mercifully, I'd planned a trip to New York that weekend, and was able to escape the torments of Miami's blistering inferno...for the biggest blizzard to hit Manhattan in recorded history. See, I didn't know it, but I'm actually a well-refined magnet for calamity, natural disasters included. Nearly every day since then, there has been some sort of traumatic event at school, save today.
On Monday, the school board voted to change the calendar, moving the semester up two weeks, making failure notices due in three days. For the next three days, I spent 11 hours at school. I spent more time on 35th Avenue than I spent in my own damn house. On Wednesday, a student in my 4th period stabbed a boy in the arm with a pencil. He was bleeding. Now, I officially reached the end of my rope. Fraying fibers, rope burn, grasping frantically for sanity. My job is no longer teaching, but crowd control. I shut down into war mode...
Phase I 13:00 casualties at zero, maintain position and await commands from headquarters.
13:35 combat site under lockdown, following aggressive action
Phase II 14:30, new bogies intercepted, 18 incoming hostiles
RETREAT!! 15:35 RETREAT TO BASE!!!
Base is now Starbucks, where I reconvene and attempt to process the events of the afternoon. I will narrate them thus:
Girl 2 (not Girl 1 who attacked small boy at computer on Thursday, but different, wholly unrelated girl) says something like "get away from me, little bitch" to Boy 2 (not small boy beaten up Thursday, but singularly different boy) who stands over her at a table. Boy 2 does not move, but Girl 3 stands up out of seat and begins screaming. Girl 3, hitherto to be known as PPLPOSDC (psychotic pathological liar piece of shit devil child) gesticulates wildly while yelling "Now, I know you heard that! That's a referral! [Girl 1] was cussin'! If that was me, you'd a wrote me up! Ms. Williamson, I know you heard that!"
Thanks. Caught that the first time.
Girl 3 is now officially hysterical, so I ask both her and Boy 2 to come outside to discuss their behavior. On his way out, I see blood (albeit a small amount) dripping from his arm. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Now, in the less than a week, blood has been spilled in my classroom. I probably saw more bodily fluids that week than my roommate's boyfriend, who is in medical school. PPLPOSDC continues to yell at me outside the classroom, and considering how this has happened at least 12 times so far this school year, I decide that it's not my job to stand there and be verbally abused by a spoiled 16 year old, so I call security.
Ha.
Did I say call security? I should clarify. By "call" I mean raise the volume of my voice, since there are no phones and no electronic means of communication with either the Central South Office or the security guard, incompetent fuck that he is. I ask an administrator visiting from the Main Campus where I might be able to find someone to take this screaming child out of my presence, and he tells me, I kid you not "I'm looking for him too. He's been missing for an hour." In disbelief, I spend a fraction of a second pondering the ironic fact that Girl 3 hadn't even been the cause of this fucked-up situation which had now escalated into a full-scale conflict, then begin to scream myself. Because that is the only recourse that I have left, when all of the proper steps and countermeasures in my job description have failed or were never even there as options as the first place. When I can't do my job, when I am completely powerless and want nothing more in the world than to ball up my fist, take aim, and land my knuckles right on her mean, abusive, deceitful lips, I scream.
"S-E-C-U-R-I-T-Y"
I walk to the corner so that my words rattle the paint flakes on the concrete walls, and force all my anger out through my lungs: "CAN I P-L-E-A-S-E get some SECURITY?"
I bellow down the other corridor, towards the Madison office: "SECURITYYYYYYYYYYYYY"
Finally, a security guard employed by the Middle school which does not employ me took PPLPOSDC away so that I could deal with the sheepishly bleeding Boy 2 sitting on the bench. I talk to him about why he got stabbed with a pencil, and by now it's almost time to switch classes. My kids come out of the classroom, the halls flood, and PPLPOSDC comes back along with the Madison security guard. I tell both of them, as is well within my rights as a teacher, that I will not speak with her until I see a parent, so she should please leave the room.
Fuming, I resume the duties in my contract, to fill out a 4-ply carbon copy "SCAM," or behavior referral on all three students: Girl 2, Boy 2, and now PPLPOSDC. A good ten minutes later, now nearly an hour since the original pencil-stabbing took place, Fat Ass (as I now call Mr. B---, our friendly, useful security guard) comes into my class.
His words, concise and to the point: "Uh, somebody said you needed me?"
Slowly pulling my seething eyes up from the third referral form to inform him "I needed you twenty minutes ago, when a student was screaming in my face. It's under control now."
From this moment on, when my concentration returned to the green paper underneath my ballpoint pen, Mr. B--- has ceased to exist on the campus. I do not look at him, I do not acknowledge the fact that he is a group of cells which intakes oxygen and releases carbon dioxide, he is not my peer nor my colleague like the custodians, the secretaries, the administrators, or the students who do their jobs. If you can't figure out how to do your fucking job, then I'll do it for you, AND mine too. It's not like I've never had to do that before.
Wednesday, February 08, 2006
Goddamn Windshield Wipers. Grr.
My cryptic angry post of last night should be followed by some sort of explanatory narrative. There's a lot of amargura flowing through my veins lately, mostly due to my work, but it's seeping into other parts of my life as well. In order to root out this poisonous feeling, I wanted to find the cause (FCAT signal word!) of all the ire and nastiness, and I wound myself into a frenzy trying to figure out what was responsible for my current feelings.
This afternoon, I was angry with my windshield. I've been more or less angry for a week. I've looked pretty damn hard to find someone or something to place the blame on, since that seems to be the theme to my work life at the moment, and then I had a rather revelatory moment in the car this evening. The truth may be that I need to stop thinking about blame, and start thinking more about responsibility. The problem isn't quite as clear-cut as the mechanical one with my car, but I think a lesson can be learned.
Here's the story.
On our way to Sanibel Island, the wipers just stopped. They sat there at a 45 degree angle stuck to the windshield. We managed to get them back to their resting position, and even made it out to Sanibel in the misty drizzle that blew away later that afternoon. Thankfully, the rest of the weekend was sunny beaches, bright mornings and good food, doing their best to cleanse the less-pleasant thoughts from my head. After a fun Superbowl with BBQ at M's apartment, I woke up to go back to school.
I didn't want to go. There is just too much to deal with there, and more horrendous crap accumulates every day. Example: on Monday afternoon, the teachers find out at the same time as the students that there will be a three hour practice FCAT the next day. Great. Thanks for the advance warning. The teachers have been stepped on, pushed out of the way, and ignored all year, and I'm about ready to bust on someone.
But I did not. Instead, I packed up my things, took D. back to the airport that night, and dragged my very reluctant self to work on Tuesday. Administering standardized tests is never very fun, so there were about as many people suprised by my wretched mood on Tuesday afternoon as there are penguins in Miami. [NB: there are no penguins in Miami. Neither are there glassblowing studios, reputable colleges or universities, or decent grocery stores].
To top things off, the grimy filth that sifts down through the lower atmosphere every day in South Florida had settled in a crusty layer over my entire windshield making it decidedly difficult to see. I was totally and completely powerless to fix the situation: I don't know enough about the mechanics of my car to repair it; I have not yet had the time to take it to a shop; I didn't have any way to clean the windshield on the way home; and I had forgotten to wipe it off before I left for work in the morning. All I could do was sit there and stew at the perfectly sparkling pane of glass that stood between me and the dusty crud. Ready to scream and throw an empty coffee mug through the window, I screamed at the car, hit the steering wheel, and tried to find someone or something I could blame for the wipers' failure.
Thinking through the possible reasons for the malfunction, I tried to figure out why I was so angry. A driving force was the fact that I was now responsible for fixing the wipers, which would be a royal pain in my ass. Then, as wheels kept on turning, I realized that while I may be responsible for the car and all of its parts, it is not my fault that they are broken. The blame lies elsewhere, if there really is any blame to be placed. Sometimes it's nobody's fault, or the culpability is fragmented in so many pieces, scattered in so many directions that figuring out who is at fault is futile. It's an old car, and sometimes shit happens to old cars. It may not even be *technically* my car, but it is my responsibility, and therefore I have to shoulder the burden of taking care of it. I don't mean to get too melodramatic about the wipers, but my contemplative little brain extrapolated the lesson to other parts of my life which have also made me rather frustrated in the past few months. It is NOT my fault that R. reads on barely a 2nd grade reading level. Unfortunately, until June it is my responsibility to see that he comes to school and at the very least sees people engaged in learning around him. I think it's healthier for everyone to take a step back, after yelling at the windshield wipers, and figure out whose responsibility it is to fix them, instead of getting our metaphorical panties in bunch over who has to accept the blame. The subtle difference between the two, blame and responsibility, is not something that I am finely attuned to, but I'm trying. Differentiating seems to be crucial to my psychological well-being, and should also make my work environment somewhat healthier.
Of course, none of this fancy philosophizing does anything to change the fact that the garage closes at 5:00 pm, and all this week I didn't even leave my room until 4:45, but that's another topic for another day.
This afternoon, I was angry with my windshield. I've been more or less angry for a week. I've looked pretty damn hard to find someone or something to place the blame on, since that seems to be the theme to my work life at the moment, and then I had a rather revelatory moment in the car this evening. The truth may be that I need to stop thinking about blame, and start thinking more about responsibility. The problem isn't quite as clear-cut as the mechanical one with my car, but I think a lesson can be learned.
Here's the story.
On our way to Sanibel Island, the wipers just stopped. They sat there at a 45 degree angle stuck to the windshield. We managed to get them back to their resting position, and even made it out to Sanibel in the misty drizzle that blew away later that afternoon. Thankfully, the rest of the weekend was sunny beaches, bright mornings and good food, doing their best to cleanse the less-pleasant thoughts from my head. After a fun Superbowl with BBQ at M's apartment, I woke up to go back to school.
I didn't want to go. There is just too much to deal with there, and more horrendous crap accumulates every day. Example: on Monday afternoon, the teachers find out at the same time as the students that there will be a three hour practice FCAT the next day. Great. Thanks for the advance warning. The teachers have been stepped on, pushed out of the way, and ignored all year, and I'm about ready to bust on someone.
But I did not. Instead, I packed up my things, took D. back to the airport that night, and dragged my very reluctant self to work on Tuesday. Administering standardized tests is never very fun, so there were about as many people suprised by my wretched mood on Tuesday afternoon as there are penguins in Miami. [NB: there are no penguins in Miami. Neither are there glassblowing studios, reputable colleges or universities, or decent grocery stores].
To top things off, the grimy filth that sifts down through the lower atmosphere every day in South Florida had settled in a crusty layer over my entire windshield making it decidedly difficult to see. I was totally and completely powerless to fix the situation: I don't know enough about the mechanics of my car to repair it; I have not yet had the time to take it to a shop; I didn't have any way to clean the windshield on the way home; and I had forgotten to wipe it off before I left for work in the morning. All I could do was sit there and stew at the perfectly sparkling pane of glass that stood between me and the dusty crud. Ready to scream and throw an empty coffee mug through the window, I screamed at the car, hit the steering wheel, and tried to find someone or something I could blame for the wipers' failure.
Thinking through the possible reasons for the malfunction, I tried to figure out why I was so angry. A driving force was the fact that I was now responsible for fixing the wipers, which would be a royal pain in my ass. Then, as wheels kept on turning, I realized that while I may be responsible for the car and all of its parts, it is not my fault that they are broken. The blame lies elsewhere, if there really is any blame to be placed. Sometimes it's nobody's fault, or the culpability is fragmented in so many pieces, scattered in so many directions that figuring out who is at fault is futile. It's an old car, and sometimes shit happens to old cars. It may not even be *technically* my car, but it is my responsibility, and therefore I have to shoulder the burden of taking care of it. I don't mean to get too melodramatic about the wipers, but my contemplative little brain extrapolated the lesson to other parts of my life which have also made me rather frustrated in the past few months. It is NOT my fault that R. reads on barely a 2nd grade reading level. Unfortunately, until June it is my responsibility to see that he comes to school and at the very least sees people engaged in learning around him. I think it's healthier for everyone to take a step back, after yelling at the windshield wipers, and figure out whose responsibility it is to fix them, instead of getting our metaphorical panties in bunch over who has to accept the blame. The subtle difference between the two, blame and responsibility, is not something that I am finely attuned to, but I'm trying. Differentiating seems to be crucial to my psychological well-being, and should also make my work environment somewhat healthier.
Of course, none of this fancy philosophizing does anything to change the fact that the garage closes at 5:00 pm, and all this week I didn't even leave my room until 4:45, but that's another topic for another day.
Sunday, January 29, 2006
The Stuff of Legends
The past few days have truly been of an epic nature. First, let me provide my dear reading audience with a disclaimer: despite my best intentions, and we all know how dangerous those can be, I have become slightly inebriated on a SUNDAY NIGHT due to some wonderfully fun people, Blue Moon Brewery, and a knavishly delicious zinfandel. Fair warning, all.Do we walk in legends, or on the green earth in daylight?
My weekend was jump started somewhat surreptitiously on Thursday evening, when I agreed to attend a performance of "Sir, Majesty" at Tobacco Road. My roommate's boyfriends' brother decided to postpone medical school in order to pursue his musical career. Thankfully, his band is good enough to warrant such a decison. We had such a good time hanging out and listening to great music that I stayed out way past my planned midnight bedtime.
Smiling and happy, we rolled up to the apartment at 1:00 am. I knew Friday was going to be horrific.
Despite my weekly breakfast treat at Starbucks, my Friday did not begin auspiciously. As soon as I passed through the chain-link gates of school, my assistant principal accosted me to tell me that three staff members would be absent, and once again I would be asked to sacrifice my planning time to cover their asses. Never mind the fact that I had a parent conference with a student who had blatantly called me a bitch in class. My job just wouldn't be my job if I weren't requested to perform six tasks at once, three of which aren't really my responsibility.
After the conference, things went downhill. I couldn't concentrate for the last thirty minutes of planning, and blew my time answering emails on the internet and napping across three desks. Pathetic, I know. Then, the children arrived. My 7th period, the class with a higher percentage of non-morons, was fine as usual, but then the idiots arrived. By idiots, I do not mean mentally deficient children incapable of coherent thought, but the kids who just want to piss each other off, and in doing so irritate the fuck out of me. I was almost okay with them, and even permitted them to play Scrabble, but after two rounds, the smart group had me on my last nerve. One particular child refused to stop talking about how he deserved a homework pass, a rare treat only bestowed up on those students who are able to beat me in a game of Scrabble. I refused to play with his group because he was pissing me off so much, and I knew that I shouldn't be involved in any competitive activity with them. Still, he persited in asserting "I need a homework pass" at the top of his voice. Finally, I turned around and said "D---, you are insane."
All of the children fell silent for about .785 seconds, then busted out laughing as D--- became very, very angry. Calmly and logically, I explained to the class, and to D--- that there was absolutely no possiblility for him to recieve a homework pass, because not only do you have to BEAT me to get one, I have to be a player in the fucking game!!! If I'm not even in the game, then there is no earthly way that he's going to win a homework pass for any number of reasons. This did not go over very well on my students, who tend not to follow logical thought patterns. The only saving grace here was that my psychotic student, who is a pathological liar and mentally disturbed, was not present to witness the episode and scream while running around "Ms. Williamson, you always gonna try me! You pickin' on me! That ain't fair!" While inflicting some sort of bodily harm on another student. I thank the powers that be for small favors.
The day continued in much the same vein, with the charming addition of a message from Gemma reminding me that I had promised to chaperone a soccer field trip to Aventura mall that evening. Fuck me.
I pulled up to the teachers' parking lot to find a gaggle of soccer players swarming the van. They looked happy to see me, and the high spirits were mildly infectious. Also, several girls were bursting to share the gossip of the day. Now I'm accustomed to hearing some pretty crazy shit about daily life at central: people having sex in the rafters, administrators tackling students, fights, riots, etc, but I wasn't quite prepared for this.
Apparently, in some unoccupied classroom, a girl gave a boy a blow job. Mr. Hot Stuff decides that he's going to record the sex act on his camera phone, in video format. Then, to prove his manliness he sends the picture to a friend. Now, if you were a 16-18 year old boy who just recieved a clip of pornography involving one of your friends, what would you do with this knowledge at school? Why, you'd send it to any phone you could reach during lunchtime. In the first lunch period, the news spread like wildfire, and the school began to murmur. Then, after the second round of children were released from class for lunch, someone ascertained the whereabouts of the girl in the video. A large group of male students then sought out the class, meanwhile the girl's friends have informed her that someone is looking for her. She aparently denies the incident, but the class is not convinced. Halfway through second lunch, the horde of hormonally charged boys surrounds the class chanting "Give me head! Give me head!" The bell rings for 5th period to begin, and bam! the girl is out like a Central Rocket, sprinting through the halls followed by several dozen teenage boys waving pictures of her on their phones, making obscene gestures, and still screaming "Give me head!" I think she might need to transfer.
Absolutely incredulous as to the new depths which our school could sink to, I enjoyed a hearty laugh with the ladies while shaking my head in disbelief. This had to be fiction; who could be so stupid?
Luckily, the soccer kids were cute, if loud, and a jocund good time was had by all at the cinema. I picked up my 15 copies of the Odyssey (oUCh! said my pocketbook.), had a great dinner, walked around and had an altogether relaxed evening with a friend I haven't seen much of lately.
Unluckily, some may say, I returned home to find that Virginia not only wanted to watch movies, but had good alcohol as well. Shit. Two English romantic comedies later, we were very happy people.
Saturday went by in a blissful blur of reading and sleeping in, a long sunset run along the Venetian followed by a wonderful Icebox dinner with Virginia to load up on carbs for her half marathon. She woke up at 4:30 to run 13.1 miles, while Mary and I "slept in" until 7:00, grabbed coffee, and met the other insane race participants at the finish line near Bayside park. Yet another Icebox meal followed: a congratulatory brunch with all 6 runners. Idyllic soccer in the park rounded out a fitness-themed day, and then we sat down for a nice dinner together in our apartment to prepare for the coming week. Unfortunately, Virginia and Carlos decied NOT to attend school that Monday, neatly allowing them to goof off and be generally irresponsible during a delicious pasta dinner expertly prepared by yours truly, accompanied by the aforementioned Blue Moon. Whew.
Truly a fabulous weekend, in every sense of the word. Some parts were worth of fable, other moments better served as friendly morality reminders, and yet others outlandish events useful in the "what-not-to-to" genre of fables. Life is nothing if not interesting.
Wednesday, November 23, 2005
I think I lost my routine. Can you find it for me?
My weekly schedule has been somewhat, well, inconsistent in the past few weeks. It's starting to really get to me.
In October, I got lulled into the fact that school was going relatively well, soccer improved, and my personal life seemed pretty easy to handle. Then, there was this "hurricane" and there still seem to be chunks of debris swirling around me. Some bits make glancing blows, others whip by without hurting, but no matter how I try, some grit and stone manages to zoom right into my eye and sting.
I'd forgotten that the day before Wilma hit, we got a new Assistant Principal at the "Central South Sattelite Campus" (the four-room pathetic excuse for a 'high school' that they've scraped together at Madison Middle). She seemed harmless enough when she introduced herself, but I should have known better when we were forced to have an hour-long faculty meeting the next Wednesday to "introduce ourselves." Ordinarily, I would say that this was a good idea; the staff needs to get acquainted with a new administrator, and talk about what's been working and what hasn't. Yes, that would have been productive. Instead, we did various get-to-know-you activities which involved writing poems about ourselves. Are you kidding me? Really? She doesn't seem to "get" the fact that we've been getting along just fine enough for the past three months without her. She swooped in and wanted to "take charge" and "get things done."
So now we've finally got the administrator, extra security guard, and the two counselors that we were legally required to be provided with at the beginning of the school year. It only took them a semester to do so. Yet, even with all these extra bodies, more help and advice for the students, things are starting to go to hell.
Even my own personal hero, Ms. B the ESE coordinator, is starting to get down. This is a woman who at thirtysomething owns more shoes and matching color-coordinated suits than I can ever hope to house in a closet. She is a woman who inspires the respect (and sometimes fear) of the students while making a mohawk sexy. She is amazing, and I love her. They kicked her out of the office she's been using since August, told her to clean out a janitorial storage closet to use, then proceeded to appropriate her space. If she's not daunted, how can I complain?
The kids, while they may be doing their homework a little more, are getting rowdier. For some reason, the security team can't keep track of who's in class and who's not; illicit activities in the "halls" a.k.a. grassy fields in between and behind the portables have become a problem. One of my two thumbsuckers, yes I have two of them in the NINTH GRADE, shows up to class 25 minutes late after lunch. When asked where he's been, the towering 14 year-old removes his digit from his mouth to tell me that he was detained in the office. "Why, Maurice? And don't you have a note?" "Naw, we was throwin' dice."
And how does one begin to respond to that? Somewhat at a loss, I gave him a stern teacher look, shake my head, and decide to let him in to class. At least he's honest, right?
There are several problems with crowd control and behavior managment. One of them, unfortunately, is that our new A.P. is white. The one we had before, the only competent one, was a strong black woman who probably reminded half the kids of an aunt or mother, and she didn't take any lip. The other large dilemma is that this new woman looks like she's about to have a coronary in the next three point five seconds. She races around like it's the end of the world, but what she doesn't realize is that the world already ended. It ended on August 1st when "Central South" opened its doors, and the rest of us have just learned to exist in this hell-hole by relying on our wits and each other. Fighting the system is too hard. In a place like this, you've got to "flow" as Ms. B says. She just hasn't found her rhythm, and I hope like hell she gets with it soon, because she's going to take us all down with her. I'm not much for going down with this ship, because it's going to be a titanic disaster. Pun intended.
I was starting to get my flow before the damn hurricane hit, and now it's just all messed up. With these last three weeks before break, I'm hoping to get back in the groove and trickle on in to winter break. I'm starting to get sarcastic with the kids, which is dangerous for both parties. That should stop.
Well, at least it's vacation.
In October, I got lulled into the fact that school was going relatively well, soccer improved, and my personal life seemed pretty easy to handle. Then, there was this "hurricane" and there still seem to be chunks of debris swirling around me. Some bits make glancing blows, others whip by without hurting, but no matter how I try, some grit and stone manages to zoom right into my eye and sting.
I'd forgotten that the day before Wilma hit, we got a new Assistant Principal at the "Central South Sattelite Campus" (the four-room pathetic excuse for a 'high school' that they've scraped together at Madison Middle). She seemed harmless enough when she introduced herself, but I should have known better when we were forced to have an hour-long faculty meeting the next Wednesday to "introduce ourselves." Ordinarily, I would say that this was a good idea; the staff needs to get acquainted with a new administrator, and talk about what's been working and what hasn't. Yes, that would have been productive. Instead, we did various get-to-know-you activities which involved writing poems about ourselves. Are you kidding me? Really? She doesn't seem to "get" the fact that we've been getting along just fine enough for the past three months without her. She swooped in and wanted to "take charge" and "get things done."
So now we've finally got the administrator, extra security guard, and the two counselors that we were legally required to be provided with at the beginning of the school year. It only took them a semester to do so. Yet, even with all these extra bodies, more help and advice for the students, things are starting to go to hell.
Even my own personal hero, Ms. B the ESE coordinator, is starting to get down. This is a woman who at thirtysomething owns more shoes and matching color-coordinated suits than I can ever hope to house in a closet. She is a woman who inspires the respect (and sometimes fear) of the students while making a mohawk sexy. She is amazing, and I love her. They kicked her out of the office she's been using since August, told her to clean out a janitorial storage closet to use, then proceeded to appropriate her space. If she's not daunted, how can I complain?
The kids, while they may be doing their homework a little more, are getting rowdier. For some reason, the security team can't keep track of who's in class and who's not; illicit activities in the "halls" a.k.a. grassy fields in between and behind the portables have become a problem. One of my two thumbsuckers, yes I have two of them in the NINTH GRADE, shows up to class 25 minutes late after lunch. When asked where he's been, the towering 14 year-old removes his digit from his mouth to tell me that he was detained in the office. "Why, Maurice? And don't you have a note?" "Naw, we was throwin' dice."
And how does one begin to respond to that? Somewhat at a loss, I gave him a stern teacher look, shake my head, and decide to let him in to class. At least he's honest, right?
There are several problems with crowd control and behavior managment. One of them, unfortunately, is that our new A.P. is white. The one we had before, the only competent one, was a strong black woman who probably reminded half the kids of an aunt or mother, and she didn't take any lip. The other large dilemma is that this new woman looks like she's about to have a coronary in the next three point five seconds. She races around like it's the end of the world, but what she doesn't realize is that the world already ended. It ended on August 1st when "Central South" opened its doors, and the rest of us have just learned to exist in this hell-hole by relying on our wits and each other. Fighting the system is too hard. In a place like this, you've got to "flow" as Ms. B says. She just hasn't found her rhythm, and I hope like hell she gets with it soon, because she's going to take us all down with her. I'm not much for going down with this ship, because it's going to be a titanic disaster. Pun intended.
I was starting to get my flow before the damn hurricane hit, and now it's just all messed up. With these last three weeks before break, I'm hoping to get back in the groove and trickle on in to winter break. I'm starting to get sarcastic with the kids, which is dangerous for both parties. That should stop.
Well, at least it's vacation.
Tuesday, August 09, 2005
Quitter.
I'm having a serious moral dilemma. Ever since I got back from Minnesota, life just keeps sliding closer and closer to the shitter. For some reason, every organization in Miami-Dade County wants to lie, manipulate, and otherwise make my life hell.
I reported to work on Monday, went to my required innane, sometimes painfully boring meetings, still with no definite teaching assignment. School started in 10 days, and they still didn't have 75% of the students scheduled. Hey, could we have forseen this problem? Oh, maybe we could have seen it when the School District couldn't get their fingers out of their asses for long enough to make a decision about the Zone until July 14th. The plan from the Superintendent didn't trickle down until nearly July 20th. Then, Central's computer database crashed during a power outage on July 22nd. What a stellar way to start the year.
As of Thursday evening (yes, that's four days before school started), I was teaching some form of 10th Grade English. I would be staying at the 95th street campus.
Friday morning (yes, that's three days before the start of school), I was informed in no uncertain terms from my Assistant Principal that I would be teaching at Madison Middle school, 9th grade. I left school, went home and cried in a ball for an hour, before moving 10 boxes of books in my own minivan (the movers left without me) in 90+ degree heat over to my new portable classroom (no computers, for my "computer-based" classes, no internet, no teacher desk, mountains of fire ants.).
Saturday, I said a great big "fuck you" to all things high school. I seem to be doing a lot of that lately.
Sunday, I went to school, put up posters, arranged desks and cleaned my room.
Monday brought the students, in scant numbers. All the assholes with the bad attitudes decided to take the extra Zone week off and come back to school on the 9th. Oh, what's that? What day is today? Oh, shit, that's right. They all decided to come back today.
Week 1 of school consisted of complete disorganization on the part of the administration. We had no principal at Madison, no Assistant Principal. They finally decided to hire someone circa Wednesday. Smart move, School District. Way to really support your staff which is implementing reforms that you threw down from on high without actually thinking about. Kids are fine the first week, they can't figure you out, especially this crazy white lady that wears trendy clothes and talks about literature. I turned in my Midterm for one class, scrambled frantically to write the lamest paper I have ever written: a summary of a scientific research study. 15 pages. Gag.
On Wednesday, at lunch, I opened my lunch box to find every ziploc bag covered in a slowly-moving black mass. Oh, you guessed it, those were ants. 10:15 am, my lunchtime (does that seem logical? no, it doesn't), also seemed to be insect chow hour. De-anting my lunch didn't really excite my appetite, but that wasn't really the problem. These wonderful bugs were fire ants, to which I am extremely allergic.
By Thursday afternoon, I couldn't move my left thumb, which was twice its normal size and a nice hot reddish color. Did I mention that fire ant bites also itch? That evening, I noticed a large red streak moving down my arm from the ant poison. Super. Super-de-duper. The red streak stayed till Friday, and my ant bite continued to ooze puss from the swollen thumb until Saturday. Excellent. I love my new classroom.
Saturday brought another exemplary class from the master professors at FIU during which I fell asleep I was so bored. The only entertaining part was when EIGHT people whined at the professor about getting an extension on their paper because they were "too busy." Right, I forgot, "I didn't feel like it" is a great excuse to use for not completing school work. Why on earth should we expect our students to take school seriously, or even bother to complete their work when their TEACHERS have such lame ass excuses for their own work. Way to set an example, Miami-Dade.
No wonder, then, that by the time Sunday rolled around I was ready once again to say a big "fuck you" to all things Florida International University. I proceeded to do so, having a wonderful day on South Beach: brunch with Dave after an envigorating run, and a haircut at the Aveda Salon with VA.
Monday. Oh, Monday. On Monday morning, the administration switched us over to block scheduling (100 minute classes instead of 50) with absolutely no warning. "Hmm," I thought to myself "1st period is really long this morning. I wonder why." Gee, it's so good that I have barely enough lessons planned for the day, I wasn't worried at all about filling twice the normal amount of time. Whatever.
Then, today happened. This morning, in a truly unimaginable development, I arrived at my classroom to find all of my desks replaced with broken ones, my filing cabinet gone, all of my papers taken from any horizontal surface, and my desk gone. Slightly confused, I presented an inquiry to the administration regarding the whereabouts of my belongings. "Oh, Ms. Williamson, you're in room 6." I don't have a key to room 6. The last time I was in room 6, there was another teacher's things in it, and no desks.
Apparently, last night someone packed up all of my things and put them in boxes, then threw them in room 6. At 7:45, fifteen minutes after school started, with my class of confused students in tow, we finally got someone to open room 6. There were 32 desks, 6 6foot by 3 foot tables, 8 computers on 2 more 6 foot by 3 foot tables, and 14 boxes of textbooks. Room 6 is not large. My sudents had to climb over the desks and sit on top of them, because they could not fit in the chairs. Apparently, the administration does not understand that students, especially ones with bad attitudes who finally decide to show up a week after class started, are not apt to be on their best behavior in a room that looks and functions like A STORAGE CLOSET.
Oh, but it was fine, because I have white boards now. White boards, no markers. Several hours later, when I finally found a marker, it was orange. New-Girl-From-The-Back: "Miss, I can't see that. You have to write with something else. I can't read that. You can't make me read that." Of course New-Girl-From-The-Back-Who-Missed-Last-Week, I would be *more* than happy to accommodate your aversion to orange ink.
The old kids are pissed at the new kids for missing last week's work; the new kids are pissed to be here, and about 20% of them are just those kinds of kids who are pissed all the time; I'm pissed as fuck at the administration, who keeps coming in and smiling, telling me how nice I'm being, and interrupting the sad excuse for a lesson that was my class today. Movers came in during 4th block, 7th period, and 6th period to cart off several large tables, and somehow one class actually got through Rudyard Kipling's "The Elephant's Child," with me doing animal voices.
I worked through lunch, felt ready to keel over at 3:30 when the kids finally left, and proceeded to have my first bite of food since 6am while I worked on my paper, which, I might add, is due tomorrow evening. I drove home in a daze and proceeded to fall instantly asleep while talking to my cat.
While I was ignorant in dreamland, blissfully ignorant, if you will, the forces of evil known as Floriday International University were conspiring against me. I learned, upon waking, that....[drumroll please]
1. I cannot register, due to a database malfunction. Hmm, these seem to be contagious lately. Maybe every Webmaster in Miami is a fucking idiot.
2. One of the classes for which we cannot register is already filled up, by people who somehow miraculously CAN register.
3. The only other class which is available to Urban Masters students is on Monday nights, the evening which I attend the only activity which keeps me SANE in this fucked-up-upside-down-perverse infrastructure of the Miami educational world: soccer.
4. Neither the web tech support people, or the Registrar, who I spoke to on the phone, can fix this problem.
I sent an email to our dean's secretary saying that I would be withdrawing from the program. I still have a paper due tomorrow night.
I am so upset. I don't quit things easily; true, we got roped into this shitty program under false pretenses AND blatant lies by TFA and FIU, but in spite of unethical acronyms, I have devoted a year to the program and thousands of dollars. The ignominy of being beaten by THIS system, of all the asisnine idiotic systems in the world, is acrid. It makes me want to vomit when I think of all the nights I spent trapped in meaningless classes wiht vapid students, doing absolutely no worthwhile work at all. I feel surrounded by the vile putrescence of quitting, and I can't seem to rid myself of it.
I shouldn't care. It's a stupid program. It's not intellectually validating, nor will it really help my future career goals. That doesn't change the fact that I'm a quitter, or that I still have that damn paper due tomorrow.
So, friends, I turn the music up very, very loud and close out this post to the wise words of Wilco...
"Monday, I'm all high
Get me out of FLA
I fooled ya, in school, yeah.
Now, I know I made a mistake...
I only wanna go where my wheels roll"
I reported to work on Monday, went to my required innane, sometimes painfully boring meetings, still with no definite teaching assignment. School started in 10 days, and they still didn't have 75% of the students scheduled. Hey, could we have forseen this problem? Oh, maybe we could have seen it when the School District couldn't get their fingers out of their asses for long enough to make a decision about the Zone until July 14th. The plan from the Superintendent didn't trickle down until nearly July 20th. Then, Central's computer database crashed during a power outage on July 22nd. What a stellar way to start the year.
As of Thursday evening (yes, that's four days before school started), I was teaching some form of 10th Grade English. I would be staying at the 95th street campus.
Friday morning (yes, that's three days before the start of school), I was informed in no uncertain terms from my Assistant Principal that I would be teaching at Madison Middle school, 9th grade. I left school, went home and cried in a ball for an hour, before moving 10 boxes of books in my own minivan (the movers left without me) in 90+ degree heat over to my new portable classroom (no computers, for my "computer-based" classes, no internet, no teacher desk, mountains of fire ants.).
Saturday, I said a great big "fuck you" to all things high school. I seem to be doing a lot of that lately.
Sunday, I went to school, put up posters, arranged desks and cleaned my room.
Monday brought the students, in scant numbers. All the assholes with the bad attitudes decided to take the extra Zone week off and come back to school on the 9th. Oh, what's that? What day is today? Oh, shit, that's right. They all decided to come back today.
Week 1 of school consisted of complete disorganization on the part of the administration. We had no principal at Madison, no Assistant Principal. They finally decided to hire someone circa Wednesday. Smart move, School District. Way to really support your staff which is implementing reforms that you threw down from on high without actually thinking about. Kids are fine the first week, they can't figure you out, especially this crazy white lady that wears trendy clothes and talks about literature. I turned in my Midterm for one class, scrambled frantically to write the lamest paper I have ever written: a summary of a scientific research study. 15 pages. Gag.
On Wednesday, at lunch, I opened my lunch box to find every ziploc bag covered in a slowly-moving black mass. Oh, you guessed it, those were ants. 10:15 am, my lunchtime (does that seem logical? no, it doesn't), also seemed to be insect chow hour. De-anting my lunch didn't really excite my appetite, but that wasn't really the problem. These wonderful bugs were fire ants, to which I am extremely allergic.
By Thursday afternoon, I couldn't move my left thumb, which was twice its normal size and a nice hot reddish color. Did I mention that fire ant bites also itch? That evening, I noticed a large red streak moving down my arm from the ant poison. Super. Super-de-duper. The red streak stayed till Friday, and my ant bite continued to ooze puss from the swollen thumb until Saturday. Excellent. I love my new classroom.
Saturday brought another exemplary class from the master professors at FIU during which I fell asleep I was so bored. The only entertaining part was when EIGHT people whined at the professor about getting an extension on their paper because they were "too busy." Right, I forgot, "I didn't feel like it" is a great excuse to use for not completing school work. Why on earth should we expect our students to take school seriously, or even bother to complete their work when their TEACHERS have such lame ass excuses for their own work. Way to set an example, Miami-Dade.
No wonder, then, that by the time Sunday rolled around I was ready once again to say a big "fuck you" to all things Florida International University. I proceeded to do so, having a wonderful day on South Beach: brunch with Dave after an envigorating run, and a haircut at the Aveda Salon with VA.
Monday. Oh, Monday. On Monday morning, the administration switched us over to block scheduling (100 minute classes instead of 50) with absolutely no warning. "Hmm," I thought to myself "1st period is really long this morning. I wonder why." Gee, it's so good that I have barely enough lessons planned for the day, I wasn't worried at all about filling twice the normal amount of time. Whatever.
Then, today happened. This morning, in a truly unimaginable development, I arrived at my classroom to find all of my desks replaced with broken ones, my filing cabinet gone, all of my papers taken from any horizontal surface, and my desk gone. Slightly confused, I presented an inquiry to the administration regarding the whereabouts of my belongings. "Oh, Ms. Williamson, you're in room 6." I don't have a key to room 6. The last time I was in room 6, there was another teacher's things in it, and no desks.
Apparently, last night someone packed up all of my things and put them in boxes, then threw them in room 6. At 7:45, fifteen minutes after school started, with my class of confused students in tow, we finally got someone to open room 6. There were 32 desks, 6 6foot by 3 foot tables, 8 computers on 2 more 6 foot by 3 foot tables, and 14 boxes of textbooks. Room 6 is not large. My sudents had to climb over the desks and sit on top of them, because they could not fit in the chairs. Apparently, the administration does not understand that students, especially ones with bad attitudes who finally decide to show up a week after class started, are not apt to be on their best behavior in a room that looks and functions like A STORAGE CLOSET.
Oh, but it was fine, because I have white boards now. White boards, no markers. Several hours later, when I finally found a marker, it was orange. New-Girl-From-The-Back: "Miss, I can't see that. You have to write with something else. I can't read that. You can't make me read that." Of course New-Girl-From-The-Back-Who-Missed-Last-Week, I would be *more* than happy to accommodate your aversion to orange ink.
The old kids are pissed at the new kids for missing last week's work; the new kids are pissed to be here, and about 20% of them are just those kinds of kids who are pissed all the time; I'm pissed as fuck at the administration, who keeps coming in and smiling, telling me how nice I'm being, and interrupting the sad excuse for a lesson that was my class today. Movers came in during 4th block, 7th period, and 6th period to cart off several large tables, and somehow one class actually got through Rudyard Kipling's "The Elephant's Child," with me doing animal voices.
I worked through lunch, felt ready to keel over at 3:30 when the kids finally left, and proceeded to have my first bite of food since 6am while I worked on my paper, which, I might add, is due tomorrow evening. I drove home in a daze and proceeded to fall instantly asleep while talking to my cat.
While I was ignorant in dreamland, blissfully ignorant, if you will, the forces of evil known as Floriday International University were conspiring against me. I learned, upon waking, that....[drumroll please]
1. I cannot register, due to a database malfunction. Hmm, these seem to be contagious lately. Maybe every Webmaster in Miami is a fucking idiot.
2. One of the classes for which we cannot register is already filled up, by people who somehow miraculously CAN register.
3. The only other class which is available to Urban Masters students is on Monday nights, the evening which I attend the only activity which keeps me SANE in this fucked-up-upside-down-perverse infrastructure of the Miami educational world: soccer.
4. Neither the web tech support people, or the Registrar, who I spoke to on the phone, can fix this problem.
I sent an email to our dean's secretary saying that I would be withdrawing from the program. I still have a paper due tomorrow night.
I am so upset. I don't quit things easily; true, we got roped into this shitty program under false pretenses AND blatant lies by TFA and FIU, but in spite of unethical acronyms, I have devoted a year to the program and thousands of dollars. The ignominy of being beaten by THIS system, of all the asisnine idiotic systems in the world, is acrid. It makes me want to vomit when I think of all the nights I spent trapped in meaningless classes wiht vapid students, doing absolutely no worthwhile work at all. I feel surrounded by the vile putrescence of quitting, and I can't seem to rid myself of it.
I shouldn't care. It's a stupid program. It's not intellectually validating, nor will it really help my future career goals. That doesn't change the fact that I'm a quitter, or that I still have that damn paper due tomorrow.
So, friends, I turn the music up very, very loud and close out this post to the wise words of Wilco...
"Monday, I'm all high
Get me out of FLA
I fooled ya, in school, yeah.
Now, I know I made a mistake...
I only wanna go where my wheels roll"
Friday, February 11, 2005
Bang Bang
...goes the door to my room every day at 11:00 as students pester me to let them drop their bookbags off during lunch.
...goes the door in the morning as kids roll up to Central 30, 45 minutes late.
...goes my head on my desk during 5th period Wednesday, as the children lose any semblance of order, causing TWO students to receive the following instructions: "Do not touch anyone's desk. Do not touch any other people. Do not touch anyone else's belongings."
...went THREE cars on SW 112 Avenue on Tuesday night, turning FIU's campus into a traffic jam, and lengthening the 20 minute commute to an epic THREE HOURS.
...two more sets of paperwork down: I've officially applied to Florida International University's graduate program, and reminded the Internal Revenue Service that they owe me a fat chunk of change from last year.
...two kids who've been skipping my class since DECEMBER got caught, resulting in two parent conferences with two very angry grandmothers.
Everything seems to be happening twofold as of late, and I'm in a rhythmically repetitious mood since we're doing lyric poetry in English class this week. The big unit test is next Thursday, and I'm actually really excited to see if some of the kids have learned anything about poetic structure and figurative langauge. These past couple of weeks during the poetry unit, I've had several moments when I really do like my job.
They are usually fleeting, and usually shot down quite effectively when the children's attention lags. In every class, there are two or three (or six or seven) students who literally have no listening comprehension. A strained or strident "What did I JUST say 30 seconds ago?" has absolutely no effect on the cognitive absorption of details or directions. It's pretty impressive actually. But they're never going to listen, and I'm just going to have to keep repeating myself, or telling them to find out on their own. Everyone has their breaking point.
However, Miami in the wintertime is enough to rejuvenate even the most humbug spirits: how many people can have dinner at an outdoor cafe with friends on a Wednesday night in February? That's what I'm talking about.
Well, planning time is just about up, and I've got to get mentally prepared for 5th, 7th and 8th periods so that I can end Friday with a Bang and get started with my weekend. Shopping, a sojurn to the bead store in Kendall, and a Valentine's date with Virginia to the Red and Black Ball are all in store, and I'm ready to peace out
...goes the door in the morning as kids roll up to Central 30, 45 minutes late.
...goes my head on my desk during 5th period Wednesday, as the children lose any semblance of order, causing TWO students to receive the following instructions: "Do not touch anyone's desk. Do not touch any other people. Do not touch anyone else's belongings."
...went THREE cars on SW 112 Avenue on Tuesday night, turning FIU's campus into a traffic jam, and lengthening the 20 minute commute to an epic THREE HOURS.
...two more sets of paperwork down: I've officially applied to Florida International University's graduate program, and reminded the Internal Revenue Service that they owe me a fat chunk of change from last year.
...two kids who've been skipping my class since DECEMBER got caught, resulting in two parent conferences with two very angry grandmothers.
Everything seems to be happening twofold as of late, and I'm in a rhythmically repetitious mood since we're doing lyric poetry in English class this week. The big unit test is next Thursday, and I'm actually really excited to see if some of the kids have learned anything about poetic structure and figurative langauge. These past couple of weeks during the poetry unit, I've had several moments when I really do like my job.
They are usually fleeting, and usually shot down quite effectively when the children's attention lags. In every class, there are two or three (or six or seven) students who literally have no listening comprehension. A strained or strident "What did I JUST say 30 seconds ago?" has absolutely no effect on the cognitive absorption of details or directions. It's pretty impressive actually. But they're never going to listen, and I'm just going to have to keep repeating myself, or telling them to find out on their own. Everyone has their breaking point.
However, Miami in the wintertime is enough to rejuvenate even the most humbug spirits: how many people can have dinner at an outdoor cafe with friends on a Wednesday night in February? That's what I'm talking about.
Well, planning time is just about up, and I've got to get mentally prepared for 5th, 7th and 8th periods so that I can end Friday with a Bang and get started with my weekend. Shopping, a sojurn to the bead store in Kendall, and a Valentine's date with Virginia to the Red and Black Ball are all in store, and I'm ready to peace out
Sunday, February 06, 2005
Future Plans
I had an idyllic weekend, a nice little break from reality. My body has finally beaten out the sickness that had been kicking my ASS for two weeks, and I am starting to belive that the block schedule and extended day is not, in fact, a premonition of the apocalypse. True, there were several truly bad moments at school this week involving my "stolen" wallet [in the back of someone's car]; racism in 9th grade Reading; and several stopped class periods due to frustration and/or the implementation of Read 180, but after 48 hours of absolutely no school work, I'm starting to finally look ahead to the future.
My graduate plans are in full swing, even if it's costing me more than a small car; I've decided that intellectual engagement (however mediocre) is worth the money, and the classes are now at least relevant to issues that are in play in my class every day. Race matters, as I begin to understand more clearly every time I walk in the door and sign my initials on the time card at school. Serious, systemic, and dangerous instances of discrimination and inequality exist in so many parts of the country, and while I was exposed to this in theory during my time in college, I didn't really "get" what it meant. Telling someone that there exist 15 year olds who read at a 3rd or 4th grade reading level is one thing. You may be shocked, you may say something about how it's a travesty that the American public education system could have let a child slip through like that. What is entirely different, however, is seeing that child practice avoidance behavior when he is asked to read, "solving" his problem by abusing students physically and calling them faggots. Xenophobia, prejudice, and ignorance, are unfortunately not only the provenance of white society, and the inquisitive interest in all things different which was subtly taught to me as child is not the normal way of dealing with newness.
That said, it's all well and good to talk about these things, address and deconstruct biases, but I'm ready to actually do something about it.
Moving on to less socially conscious agendas, I'm ready for my personal life to get off the ground. I am consistently dumbfounded by my relatively easygoing relationship. Each time that one of us travels back and forth from PHL to FLL, after every hug at the airport hello and goodbye, more delicate connections are made between the two of us. By now, hundreds and thousands of little stretchy strings pull us closer and farther apart as we go about our daily lives, and I truly feel that the past 6 months apart have made us so much closer. We've both had to honestly think about why we're still together, what we want from each other, and what we're willing to do in order to keep things going.
This evening, as we drove down the familiar 21 miles of 95 to the Fort Lauderdale airport, talking calmly about David moving to Miami this year felt so good. Having someone be a huge part of my life has been a gradual process, and sometimes when I think about just how much of me I share with him it scares me. I mean, if I couldn't share my day with him, if he wasn't part of my life, I'd feel like a chunk of me was literally taken away. It's melodramatic, it's illogical, it's pretty unoriginal, but that's the way that I feel. Starting to plan for two instead of one is interesting. It's not easy, but neither is it bad. For the present, that's all I've got to say about that.
For now, that's also all I'd like to say about the future. I'd like to put off school, the rapidly encroaching FCAT, taxes, applications, FAFSA, and all sorts of real-world dilemmas and projects for another time, and spend a few sweet moments wallowing in my weekend.
[WEEKEND]
My hiatus from life began on Friday afternoon, circa 3:35 pm. Fiametta arrived in the Central parking lot to sweep me off to the 27th Avenue DMV for my Floriday driver's lisence. 45 minutes later, I left the ghetto with a legal state ID in my hand. My surname is no longer the irritating "Williamsen" from Virginia, and I'm one more step closer to completing FIU's irritating paperwork. I ran off to the gym briefly, and then Dave and I ended up getting caught up in conversation for 3 hours straight, completely missing dinner. At 10:00 pm, hungry as hell, we whipped up a gourmet salad and perfectly blissfully simple penne with cilantro and garlic. I ingested far too much of the delectable goodness too soon before falling asleep, so I conked out into unconsciousness pretty damn fast.
Saturday began at a reasonable hour, a leisurely light breakfast after the feasting of the night before, and we headed off on a sunshiney day to Key Biscayne. It's crazy tht there's this whole little island 5 minutes from Downtown, a little island oasis of white/affluent hispanic suburbia. Luckily, there's also beautiful state parks down there too. Our $4 parking fee at the south beach lot was more than worth it: ibises, sleeping terns, [I officially am becoming my parents], kite surfers, beach paths, and velvety sand kept us occupied for several windblown hours before we were forced to head back to civilization in search of sustenance. Craving seafood but seeing none, we settled for a late lunch at this crazy Argentinian place on Normandy called Vacas Gordas. I think we were a bit of an abberation to the serving staff since we 1. were white, 2. were not drinking alcohol, and 3. didn't order meat. They thought we were crazy, but luckily the staff didn't effect the taste of the food, which was stellar.
Also stellar was Saturday night. After a rousing game of scrabble to segue into the evening fun, we made Amaretto Angelfood cake for a midnight strawberry shortcake, then gave the Kitchenaid a workout with oatmeal cookies. It makes me so happy to share a part of my life that I love with the man I love. Grin. Cooking is fun.
When the other DPlace residents arrived home, we piled onto the yellow couch next door to watch "Start the Revolution Without Me," and really, if you can finish that movie without feeling good, then you must not be human. Sigh. Good night.
On that note, as I glance up to the top right-hand corner of my screen to see 10:06 staring at me nervously, I realize that it's time to wrap things up before the IMMEDIATE future kicks me in the rear. No plans for tomorrow as of yet, but hey, there's always 5:30 am for planning. I've got to break that habit eventually. Oh well, in the future I'll try to change that. =)
My graduate plans are in full swing, even if it's costing me more than a small car; I've decided that intellectual engagement (however mediocre) is worth the money, and the classes are now at least relevant to issues that are in play in my class every day. Race matters, as I begin to understand more clearly every time I walk in the door and sign my initials on the time card at school. Serious, systemic, and dangerous instances of discrimination and inequality exist in so many parts of the country, and while I was exposed to this in theory during my time in college, I didn't really "get" what it meant. Telling someone that there exist 15 year olds who read at a 3rd or 4th grade reading level is one thing. You may be shocked, you may say something about how it's a travesty that the American public education system could have let a child slip through like that. What is entirely different, however, is seeing that child practice avoidance behavior when he is asked to read, "solving" his problem by abusing students physically and calling them faggots. Xenophobia, prejudice, and ignorance, are unfortunately not only the provenance of white society, and the inquisitive interest in all things different which was subtly taught to me as child is not the normal way of dealing with newness.
That said, it's all well and good to talk about these things, address and deconstruct biases, but I'm ready to actually do something about it.
Moving on to less socially conscious agendas, I'm ready for my personal life to get off the ground. I am consistently dumbfounded by my relatively easygoing relationship. Each time that one of us travels back and forth from PHL to FLL, after every hug at the airport hello and goodbye, more delicate connections are made between the two of us. By now, hundreds and thousands of little stretchy strings pull us closer and farther apart as we go about our daily lives, and I truly feel that the past 6 months apart have made us so much closer. We've both had to honestly think about why we're still together, what we want from each other, and what we're willing to do in order to keep things going.
This evening, as we drove down the familiar 21 miles of 95 to the Fort Lauderdale airport, talking calmly about David moving to Miami this year felt so good. Having someone be a huge part of my life has been a gradual process, and sometimes when I think about just how much of me I share with him it scares me. I mean, if I couldn't share my day with him, if he wasn't part of my life, I'd feel like a chunk of me was literally taken away. It's melodramatic, it's illogical, it's pretty unoriginal, but that's the way that I feel. Starting to plan for two instead of one is interesting. It's not easy, but neither is it bad. For the present, that's all I've got to say about that.
For now, that's also all I'd like to say about the future. I'd like to put off school, the rapidly encroaching FCAT, taxes, applications, FAFSA, and all sorts of real-world dilemmas and projects for another time, and spend a few sweet moments wallowing in my weekend.
[WEEKEND]
My hiatus from life began on Friday afternoon, circa 3:35 pm. Fiametta arrived in the Central parking lot to sweep me off to the 27th Avenue DMV for my Floriday driver's lisence. 45 minutes later, I left the ghetto with a legal state ID in my hand. My surname is no longer the irritating "Williamsen" from Virginia, and I'm one more step closer to completing FIU's irritating paperwork. I ran off to the gym briefly, and then Dave and I ended up getting caught up in conversation for 3 hours straight, completely missing dinner. At 10:00 pm, hungry as hell, we whipped up a gourmet salad and perfectly blissfully simple penne with cilantro and garlic. I ingested far too much of the delectable goodness too soon before falling asleep, so I conked out into unconsciousness pretty damn fast.
Saturday began at a reasonable hour, a leisurely light breakfast after the feasting of the night before, and we headed off on a sunshiney day to Key Biscayne. It's crazy tht there's this whole little island 5 minutes from Downtown, a little island oasis of white/affluent hispanic suburbia. Luckily, there's also beautiful state parks down there too. Our $4 parking fee at the south beach lot was more than worth it: ibises, sleeping terns, [I officially am becoming my parents], kite surfers, beach paths, and velvety sand kept us occupied for several windblown hours before we were forced to head back to civilization in search of sustenance. Craving seafood but seeing none, we settled for a late lunch at this crazy Argentinian place on Normandy called Vacas Gordas. I think we were a bit of an abberation to the serving staff since we 1. were white, 2. were not drinking alcohol, and 3. didn't order meat. They thought we were crazy, but luckily the staff didn't effect the taste of the food, which was stellar.
Also stellar was Saturday night. After a rousing game of scrabble to segue into the evening fun, we made Amaretto Angelfood cake for a midnight strawberry shortcake, then gave the Kitchenaid a workout with oatmeal cookies. It makes me so happy to share a part of my life that I love with the man I love. Grin. Cooking is fun.
When the other DPlace residents arrived home, we piled onto the yellow couch next door to watch "Start the Revolution Without Me," and really, if you can finish that movie without feeling good, then you must not be human. Sigh. Good night.
On that note, as I glance up to the top right-hand corner of my screen to see 10:06 staring at me nervously, I realize that it's time to wrap things up before the IMMEDIATE future kicks me in the rear. No plans for tomorrow as of yet, but hey, there's always 5:30 am for planning. I've got to break that habit eventually. Oh well, in the future I'll try to change that. =)
Thursday, April 22, 2004
AAAAAAAAH
It is a beautiful fucking day outside, and I'm stuck in the Science Library. I can't think at the moment, and am in too much of the rushrushrush adrenaline mode of the past few days to accomplish anything. So instead of thinking critically, I'll synthesize.
I swear, I totally meant to go to class on Monday. After not working the entire weekend, getting gloriously sunburt at the soccer game on Sunday, and taking waaay too long to recover from the debauchery of Friday's Spanish Thesis Party, Monday morning was a kick in the ass. Schoenherr, the second reader, told me in no uncertain terms that all of the semiotic theory in my thesis was "wrong;" true, most of that wrongness is centered on my inversion and confusion of three definitions, but it's still something that HAS to be fixed. After that super-fun hour and a half long meeting, I realized that I'd missed the first part of my class at Bryn Mawr, and since I'd skipped the screening on Friday I figured what the fuck, I'll skip the discussion.
On my way back to the apartment, I checked my mail to find the mysterious Teach for America packet that everyone had already received last Thursday. In it I find that I've missed the financial aid deadline, because they didn't get me the information in time. Now thoroughly freaking out, and not being able to formulate coherent thoughts, I read incredulously through the documentation in the packet, made it to my bed and proceded to dehydrate myself thoroughly. By the time I composed myself, it was past time for English, and I hadn't packed for my trip home. Ooops. No English. Luckily, D. called in the midst of my discomposure and suggested that Starbucks might serve for a distraction before I headed out. Frappuccinos, here we come.
After that, I was on the road. There's something very meditative about long car trips, even if they do numb your rear. Not really feeling like listening to outside thoughts, I turned off the radio and rolled the window down all the way to get some fresh air, literally and figuratively. For about 3 hours, I listened to nothing but the sound of wind rushing in at 65 mph (70 on the Delaware Turnpike). I needed that time to be by myself and think about the decisions that I have to make in the next week. Who am I kidding? The next three days. All was relatively well until I hit the MD-DE state line and checked my voicemail.
TFA called twice, CHC called twice, and so did my confused parents, whom I had not informed of my plans. I finally got my lesson plan that I was to "teach" [in quotation marks, because i'm not going to convince myself that the kids in Spanish 3 learned a hell of a lot from my 55 minutes of grammatical hell: the past perfect subjunctive tense in "if" clauses. WTF, man. WTF?]. My ex-Spanish teacher kept me on the phone for a half an hour with teacher gossip and the new curriculum, despite my protests of "I have to keep driving" and "I'm really tired." So much for honesty.
Circa 8:00 pm my dry, itchy, salty eyes started to glaze over, and I conveniently spent 10 of the $15 I needed to cross the Chesapeake Bay Bridge-Tunnel on dinner. Oops. Then, at 9:00 I couldn't find a 1. working 2. open 3. non-sketchy ATM. Ended up negotiating with some skeptical indian guys running a Citgo right before the bridge, and got my 10 clams at last, just in time to get me home before 11:00. Fuckin' a, my interview STARTED at 8:00 the next morning.
Running on empty, as far as sleep goes, I show up at Cape Henry in my suit, ready to be professsional. I met with next year's Upper School Director, followed by the following people, in one-on-one 45 minute segments:
1. Upper School Guidance Counselor (the bane of my existence Junior year; how quaint that she hasn't changed at all, and remains thoroughly condescending)
2. 10th Grade Spanish 3
3. Another Spanish teacher
4. Head of Facilities and Maintenance
5. Current Head of Upper School
6. Head of School
7. Upper School Dean, Upper School Activities Director
8. Athletic Director
9. Head of Foreign Language Department
10. Next Year's Upper School Director
11. New-Faculty Coordinator/5th Grade Math Teacher
12. Student Panel
Are you kidding? By the time 3:30 rolled around, I was about interviewed out. I had a 25 minute break for lunch, and apart from that it was all questions, all the time. It's a hell of a good thing that Mrs. Ulmer was there to de-brief me for a while afterwards; there is something absolutely invaluable in someone you can trust to speak to you with honesty and candor, not to mention someone who really 'knows' you.
I drove home with a burning afternoon sun coming through the window of the poor, overworked van, listening to some fucking Clear Channel country station As American As Apple Pie. Does anyone else find that a little offensive, when the next set consisted of three songs about the United States Armed Forces? Needless to say, the "American Soldier" was portrayed rather heroically. I know it's a military town, I know Bush controlls Clear Channel, but what the fuck ever happened to the voice of dissent? How did it get crushed out of Hampton Roads?
I brought my own music for the long drive north on Wednesday morning, knowing that it would be a long one. I got through the first tunnel fine, and as I came back up over the ocean, drove right smack into a fog bank. The glowing reflection of the rising sun over the water dimmed to a faint yellow, and the entire world disapeared. I couldn't see where I was going, hardly knew which way to turn, and could only find the tunnel because of the flashing lights at its mouth. How appropriately metaphoric. I've never been in a fog that thick; all I could make out was maybe 1/4 mile in front of me, 2.5 streetlights. In spite of all the obscurity and uncertainty, I wasn't scared. I know the bridge, I've driven it before, so the fog was almost calming. I listened to Ella Fitzgerald croon away for a while, sailed by Fisherman's Island without even seeing the dunes around me, laughed at the "Scenic Overlook" sign that I could barely make out in the soup-eyness, and just drove on. By the time I reached Maryland it was refreshingly cool outside, and I'd switched back to country music to keep me awake and alert. Arrived at Haverford in record time, with an hour to spare, during which I finished my English reading at last.
Rushed off to glass in Philly, during which my teacher told me to "quit your day job and become a glassblower" which perversely made my day. He also convinced me to look seriously into summer classes, which I think I'm going to do, because I'm addicted =). Did absolutely no work on the Thesis all Wednesday, and am trying to rectify said catastrophe, along with 2. the financial aid mix-up and 3. DECIDING MY JOB FOR NEXT YEAR in the next 12 hours. Ha.
I've heard a lot of things from a lot of people, and the funny thing is that when I finally decide to tune them out listen to the clamor in my own messed up head, I find myself saying a lot of the same things. But I guess you've got to come to a decision yourself. As the sage LeVar Burton of Reading Rainbow says: "Don't take my word for it..."
The decision is still pending, as is the Thesis, but at least I'm not in quite as much of a fog now. I'm starting to think clearly, and if nothing else, am able to methodically quantify the work that must be done before Tuesday. One day at at time, Thea; don't worry so much if you can't see the rest of the bridge right now, but you've GOT to get yourself to the other end of it somehow.
I swear, I totally meant to go to class on Monday. After not working the entire weekend, getting gloriously sunburt at the soccer game on Sunday, and taking waaay too long to recover from the debauchery of Friday's Spanish Thesis Party, Monday morning was a kick in the ass. Schoenherr, the second reader, told me in no uncertain terms that all of the semiotic theory in my thesis was "wrong;" true, most of that wrongness is centered on my inversion and confusion of three definitions, but it's still something that HAS to be fixed. After that super-fun hour and a half long meeting, I realized that I'd missed the first part of my class at Bryn Mawr, and since I'd skipped the screening on Friday I figured what the fuck, I'll skip the discussion.
On my way back to the apartment, I checked my mail to find the mysterious Teach for America packet that everyone had already received last Thursday. In it I find that I've missed the financial aid deadline, because they didn't get me the information in time. Now thoroughly freaking out, and not being able to formulate coherent thoughts, I read incredulously through the documentation in the packet, made it to my bed and proceded to dehydrate myself thoroughly. By the time I composed myself, it was past time for English, and I hadn't packed for my trip home. Ooops. No English. Luckily, D. called in the midst of my discomposure and suggested that Starbucks might serve for a distraction before I headed out. Frappuccinos, here we come.
After that, I was on the road. There's something very meditative about long car trips, even if they do numb your rear. Not really feeling like listening to outside thoughts, I turned off the radio and rolled the window down all the way to get some fresh air, literally and figuratively. For about 3 hours, I listened to nothing but the sound of wind rushing in at 65 mph (70 on the Delaware Turnpike). I needed that time to be by myself and think about the decisions that I have to make in the next week. Who am I kidding? The next three days. All was relatively well until I hit the MD-DE state line and checked my voicemail.
TFA called twice, CHC called twice, and so did my confused parents, whom I had not informed of my plans. I finally got my lesson plan that I was to "teach" [in quotation marks, because i'm not going to convince myself that the kids in Spanish 3 learned a hell of a lot from my 55 minutes of grammatical hell: the past perfect subjunctive tense in "if" clauses. WTF, man. WTF?]. My ex-Spanish teacher kept me on the phone for a half an hour with teacher gossip and the new curriculum, despite my protests of "I have to keep driving" and "I'm really tired." So much for honesty.
Circa 8:00 pm my dry, itchy, salty eyes started to glaze over, and I conveniently spent 10 of the $15 I needed to cross the Chesapeake Bay Bridge-Tunnel on dinner. Oops. Then, at 9:00 I couldn't find a 1. working 2. open 3. non-sketchy ATM. Ended up negotiating with some skeptical indian guys running a Citgo right before the bridge, and got my 10 clams at last, just in time to get me home before 11:00. Fuckin' a, my interview STARTED at 8:00 the next morning.
Running on empty, as far as sleep goes, I show up at Cape Henry in my suit, ready to be professsional. I met with next year's Upper School Director, followed by the following people, in one-on-one 45 minute segments:
1. Upper School Guidance Counselor (the bane of my existence Junior year; how quaint that she hasn't changed at all, and remains thoroughly condescending)
2. 10th Grade Spanish 3
3. Another Spanish teacher
4. Head of Facilities and Maintenance
5. Current Head of Upper School
6. Head of School
7. Upper School Dean, Upper School Activities Director
8. Athletic Director
9. Head of Foreign Language Department
10. Next Year's Upper School Director
11. New-Faculty Coordinator/5th Grade Math Teacher
12. Student Panel
Are you kidding? By the time 3:30 rolled around, I was about interviewed out. I had a 25 minute break for lunch, and apart from that it was all questions, all the time. It's a hell of a good thing that Mrs. Ulmer was there to de-brief me for a while afterwards; there is something absolutely invaluable in someone you can trust to speak to you with honesty and candor, not to mention someone who really 'knows' you.
I drove home with a burning afternoon sun coming through the window of the poor, overworked van, listening to some fucking Clear Channel country station As American As Apple Pie. Does anyone else find that a little offensive, when the next set consisted of three songs about the United States Armed Forces? Needless to say, the "American Soldier" was portrayed rather heroically. I know it's a military town, I know Bush controlls Clear Channel, but what the fuck ever happened to the voice of dissent? How did it get crushed out of Hampton Roads?
I brought my own music for the long drive north on Wednesday morning, knowing that it would be a long one. I got through the first tunnel fine, and as I came back up over the ocean, drove right smack into a fog bank. The glowing reflection of the rising sun over the water dimmed to a faint yellow, and the entire world disapeared. I couldn't see where I was going, hardly knew which way to turn, and could only find the tunnel because of the flashing lights at its mouth. How appropriately metaphoric. I've never been in a fog that thick; all I could make out was maybe 1/4 mile in front of me, 2.5 streetlights. In spite of all the obscurity and uncertainty, I wasn't scared. I know the bridge, I've driven it before, so the fog was almost calming. I listened to Ella Fitzgerald croon away for a while, sailed by Fisherman's Island without even seeing the dunes around me, laughed at the "Scenic Overlook" sign that I could barely make out in the soup-eyness, and just drove on. By the time I reached Maryland it was refreshingly cool outside, and I'd switched back to country music to keep me awake and alert. Arrived at Haverford in record time, with an hour to spare, during which I finished my English reading at last.
Rushed off to glass in Philly, during which my teacher told me to "quit your day job and become a glassblower" which perversely made my day. He also convinced me to look seriously into summer classes, which I think I'm going to do, because I'm addicted =). Did absolutely no work on the Thesis all Wednesday, and am trying to rectify said catastrophe, along with 2. the financial aid mix-up and 3. DECIDING MY JOB FOR NEXT YEAR in the next 12 hours. Ha.
I've heard a lot of things from a lot of people, and the funny thing is that when I finally decide to tune them out listen to the clamor in my own messed up head, I find myself saying a lot of the same things. But I guess you've got to come to a decision yourself. As the sage LeVar Burton of Reading Rainbow says: "Don't take my word for it..."
The decision is still pending, as is the Thesis, but at least I'm not in quite as much of a fog now. I'm starting to think clearly, and if nothing else, am able to methodically quantify the work that must be done before Tuesday. One day at at time, Thea; don't worry so much if you can't see the rest of the bridge right now, but you've GOT to get yourself to the other end of it somehow.
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