Apathy Lounge

On Notice

My emotions of late have been a big...um...jagged. Predictably unpredictable in that I don't ever know WHEN the mood will strike, but when it does? It's a bad one. Just so you know.  

Past experience with this kind of intense feeling would normally have me thinking I was pregnant, since the early weeks of that particular condition always brought forth thoughts and impulses historically attributed to Lizzy Borden. Halloween is awesome, but I'm trying to set aside all my scary thoughts for the year, and I count a fourth child among them.  I had Mr. Half neutered at least a decade ago and any pregnancy at my age--a number that is none of your damn business--would indicate that anything growing inside me (other than an ulcer) at the present time would probably have five heads and  twice as many sets of teeth with which to chew its way out of my retired uterus.

So, my only logical alternative is to assume that this THING which has me in its merciless, iron grip is real menopause, since it appears that I have dashed past the stage known as "peri-menopause", which is code for :  "I'm too young to be a sufferer, but I feel like crap and my attitude is worse."  This is--obviously-- bad news for me, but  (and I can't stress this point enough) it bodes doubly unfortunate for the rest of you, especially those who work with me, live with me, or possibly look at me wrong cut in front of me in the grocery store line. Even the elderly are not safe.  I apologize in advance.

Nevertheless, here's some stuff that has bugged me of late and I thought I'd share, since...well...that's the kind of person I am. A bitch, yes...but a bitch who shares. You're welcome.

1) People who start a sentence with "I hate to ask you this, but..." Know what? If you hate  to do it...then don't. Save us both some trouble and aggravation.

2) Middle-aged (or younger...I'm not discriminating here) parents who crowd your door with a dozen of their children ( Respect my personal space, people, or as I like to call it these days...the Blood Circle) and expect me to smile indulgently when they hold out a pillowcase to accept a Hershey bar from me on Halloween. Seriously? If I had tried that while my own kids were little, they'd have filed a motion for emancipation long ago. Have a little self respect! I'm not handing out liver transplants, just chocolate! Back the hell off of my front porch. Slowly.

3) Healthy Choice Cafe' Steamers taste like ASS...and not at all delicious as suggested by Julia Louis Dreyfus and the bald guy on the commercial. Can you say R-E-C-A-L-L?

4) The girl performing my torturous manicure today, who decided to crank the electric buffer up to high speed and nearly ripped off the fleshy parts of my finger. You know...THE PARTS THAT AREN'T SUPPOSED TO BE SHINY??? Or bleeding? When you see smoke, it's time to stop. Next time, why don't you just use a belt sander?

5) The manual for my ESL (English as a Second Language) class which insists that correcting the verbal mistakes of a student whose first language is not English will only result in retarding their interest in participating further during group discussions and that if I will just model the desired word usage, the student will eventually self-correct and everything will be  just great.  Au contraire, idiots.

I know people --and some are actually good friends-- educated people who continue to mispronounce words in my presence, even after I take  great pains to MODEL the way the word is supposed to be said and it hasn't changed a thing. Not a damn thing! Know why? NO ONE IS LISTENING TO ME! Sorry for shouting. Actually, I'm not sorry at all, but you know who should be? Everyone who says "lying" when they should be saying "laying" and vice versa. Also? It's not vicey versey or visa versa. It's vice versa , which is Latin for "the other way around". Look it up...and then start saying it the right way, or I won't be responsible for my actions.

6) Ditto for women  wearing tight jeans (Hookers, PTA Moms and Pamela Anderson...you're all on the list!) and  impossibly high-heeled "ho" shoes. Don't bother paying  Tim Gunn to tell you what you look like, because I'll tell you for free. Don't forget the women at Wal-Mart who wear  too-small terrycloth shorts when what they OUGHT to be wearing are shorts made from a TABLECLOTH. ALL of it! And while we're at it? Stop hitting your children with your own shoes. That's just gross.

Unless I can get my hands on some cat tranquilizers pretty quickly, Thanksgiving is going to be ugly. This has been a public service announcement. Save yourselves.

Rules of Social Engagement

One thing Facebook has taught me is that there are written and unwritten rules of social networking and forgetting to adhere to either one can have consequences.

First, there is the law up "upchaining". Since young people (anyone under 27) believe that Facebook-ing belongs to their generation and anyone older than them who participates is...well...gross, it's important to wait and allow someone young enough to be your child to "friend" you first. They can friend you, but only under rare circumstances do you ask them first.

Then, there's the notion that you can be funny or profane or profound or pedantic...but save the "Lifetime Channel For Women"/"ABC Afterschool Special" drama for another time. If your husband or boyfriend is beating the snot out of you, see a therapist or report it to the police. Or both. It should never be your Facebook status.

Those who are less experienced in the finer aspects of communication would do well to remember that a "wall post" is given that name for a very good reason: EVERYONE CAN SEE/READ WHAT YOU'VE WRITTEN, GENIUS! My 75-year old aunt decided to friend me and then start talking a load of stark nonsense about football, and unless you've lived in Texas and graduated from a university whose sports teams used to belong to something known as the now-defunct Southwest Conference, this might not make as much sense to you as it could.  Despite the fact that she comes from a family where arguing is not only an art...but soon to be an Olympic event, I'm always surprised at how easily she skews away from a direct confrontation after she's declared her intent with some random and irrational point.

But last month took the cake. There is a woman with whom I graduated from high school. We were never friends...kind of in the way that non-enemy classmates are who don't come from the same kind of living situation. Maybe that sounds strange, but if you knew her, you'd know what I meant.

Glavis (not her name...but oh so close!) sent a note to all 126 of her Facebook friends (many of whom were classmates who were--like me--not really friends) asking for money so that her son could attend a non-required school trip to DC. I thought it was tacky to ask for money from people you've only seen once in 30 years, but that's just me. This, of course, after she dragged us through the saga of her third (and very abusive) whirlwind marriage and divorce to yet another one of our classmates.  If you're wondering, she's the one who posted about being thrown against the refrigerator door.

Not the kind of thing I would do.

After she posted the request for money, I received a written request in the mail for funds from her 14-year old son...a boy I've never ever met in my life. I thought it was nervy and strange. The kid wasn't escaping from the gulag and he wasn't homeless or scraping together donations for the Food Bank. He wanted to attend an optional week-long trip with some (not all) of his classmates and his mother, gave him my address.

I never intended to send him money...and I didn't. Our youngest son had a similar opportunity back when he was still in middle school. It was sponsored by the same company and was open only to kids who were taking Honors Aquatic Science. It was expensive...but the chance of a lifetime. We paid it out (OURSELVES) and he flew to Florida and had the time of his life. But we did it on our own and unless kindly grandparents with money to burn want to chip in...it's best to accomplish this feat solo.

Glavis apparently thought that the $1,750. was steep (and it was) and decided that asking former classmates for money was the best way to fund this gig...and Facebook was the best and most direct way to do it. A week later my curiosity could not be contained and I messaged her (privately) asking in two brief sentences why she was asking for money from someone she barely knew for someone I had never met.

Her response? She "unfriended" me. She never answered my question.

I know this says more about her than it does about me...but I just had to get the story down on paper a blog post.  What's your strangest Facebook experience?

Mixed Bag

As much as I'd like to say that I sat around all weekend in old yoga pants watching DVRd episodes of "My Monkey Baby" while washing down handfuls of kettle chips with a trough or two of pino grigio, I must report that nothing of the sort took place.

Instead, I left a hellish week of work and conferences with indifferent parents (three failing students and no one has called yet on their behalf) only to rise early again on Saturday for a six hour training session on how to grade/assess English proficiency exams for immigrant students. As fortune would have it, the high school where I was attending the seminar was very close to a mall and as much as I abhor going there (too many loitering teenagers who make me feel bad about my pregnancy-scarred body and general lack of youthful appeal), I bit the bullet and took the parking lot-entrance into Macy's to buy some new clothing...just because for work. 

So even though this seminar cost me six hours of my life I'll never get back, I did come away with three pair of pants, three blouses and a sweater. Don't have  heart attack, they were having a sale, though I didn't actually know this when I walked in. Still, I like to think it was the work of the fates who were compensating me for what promises to be a heartbreaking case of Deep-Vein Thrombosis after being held captive and seated in some incredibly uncomfortable library chairs.

This on top of last weekend's Saturday which was given over entirely to painting faces with the rest of my teaching team at a local carnival, the proceeds of which would go to raising money for our class trip to Austin. Because so many of our parents are lazy indisposed, the teachers ended up working the entire day in cold/damp weather. Our booth was sandwiched thoughtfully between the Jump House (OMG!) and the "Show Your Talent" stage, where local American Idol rejects performers regaled us with tone-deaf renditions of Michael Jackson hits. I mean where else can you watch a toothless woman sing Patsy Cline songs? There was also a "storyteller" who rambled on forever and whose sagas always involved people having conversations with Jesus, someone being frightened by a ghost and a little mild child abuse thrown in for good measure.

I prayed for a booth that featured alcohol, but there was none to be had.

Today was mostly spent at a Family Reunion of sorts that was cobbled together after various members of my husband's family were in town for the Texas/OU game. Despite the fact that both sides were represented (and more than a couple were attorneys), no blood was shed and people generally conducted themselves in a civilized manner, which is more than I can say for other families.  Our college-age sons made the 3-hour drive this  for the event and then turned around and drove back, which was above and beyond the call.

It felt strange and a little dreamlike to go back home and know that, though I had seen them, they never set foot in the house. Melancholy would have overtaken me if the weather hadn't been so crisp and wonderful. I made soup, cleaned a little and did my lesson plans while the youngest and Mr. Half worked hard to make sure the exterior of our home wasn't mistaken for a hobo day camp.

So now I'm writing this last-minute blog post so that I won't feel additional guilt about the part of my life that involves not blogging and posting a picture from the best part of today...the part where I got to hug all of my sons on the same day.  Toodles!

Click to enlarge

Saying It...And Spraying It. Please Stand Back.

It was breezy, sunny and deliciously cool this morning...somewhere in the 50s. Perfect football weather. The kind of weather that makes you want to throw open the windows--I did-- and catch a whiff of whatever it is people are burning in their fireplaces, which of late has been pinon pine. Bright. Energizing. Autumn-colored flowers in pots next to perfectly rotund pumpkins in slightly varying shades of orange. Have I told you lately how much I dearly love pumpkins? How can one be unhappy when they're around to spread cheer and herald the falling of the leaves? The gathering of family. The baking of pies.

And it IS a happy time here at the Lounge, for the most part. For one because it's the weekend and I can finally log more than four-and-a-half or five hours of sleep a night. Also, because I get to see what my house looks like in daylight, which is more of a rarity than you might think. The raggedy odds and ends of the week finally get attended to. Bathrooms get cleaned, the towels come fresh from the dryer with the lingering scent of Mrs. Meyer's Clean Day dryer sheets (Oh, basil...how I love thee!), floors get swept and I'm thinking about making a savory chicken soup for dinner tomorrow.

Oldest son came home last weekend and middle son is here now. Everyone in the house left during the mid-afternoon and I took a lovely walk, returning just in time to avoid a downpour. I spent a rainy hour in a clean, quiet house...reading a book and napping on the back sofa. I'm saving my lesson plans and grade-averaging until tomorrow. It was very nearly a perfect day, if you don't count that it's not over yet and my formerly undefeated alma mater is having its ass handed to it by Arkansas as I write this. But let's not go there just yet. The week was bad enough without concentrating on the negative.

Yet it's hard not to right this minute.

The father of one of my most impoverished students died this week and I have no clue as to how they will survive. Another student has taken to combing her hair over her face so as to hide the fact that someone in her home (and she doesn't know who) shaved off one half of each eyebrow as she slept. An enraged parent of another student hung up on me during the course of a phone conference about the fact that he's failing my class. She won't allow her son to take responsibility for his work and blames me entirely for the fact that he won't follow directions. She was rude and accusatory and loud...and then she hung up on me. After repeated entreaties, not one of the parents in my homeroom will join the PTA for $6 and only two have said they would help even a little bit at the school's Fall Festival. Another boy was suspended for exposing himself to some third-graders in the bathroom and on the day he returned from suspension, he made it exactly one day before being suspended again.

See? Just that one paragraph is like a dark cloud squatting over this otherwise positive post, but I'd like to point out that I write about things like that because--(okay...mostly) I'm WORRIED about those people. It's not because I HATE them. It's called venting and I try not to use this space for that kind of stuff...exclusively.  It's not that I don't enjoy a good gripefest where I hammer home a point about someone else's stupidity. Or talk about stuff I'm afraid of or am puzzled by. Every once in awhile it's rather cleansing. I admit that. Getting stuff off your chest is healthy, even, and allows you to see the forest for the trees.

But I'm puzzled by those who use blogging to spew their rancid dogma and their cocksure-but-misplaced superiority ALL OF THE TIME--albeit while misspelling crucial parts of the argument... what we in the Education trade like to call "high frequency words". Don't they know that it invalidates--to some degree--what they're saying, since it would appear to come from a dumbass the thought processes of an educated adult who can't  think to employ the computer's editing features?  I'm thinking of one person in particular right now. This would-be pundit/writer's worn-out prejudices and pedantic accusations that do nothing more than shine a spotlight on a goose-stepping mentality.  Nationalistic blindness fueled by Talk Radio maniacs that allows people like her/him to vomit poisonous hatred for anyone who disagrees  and call it patriotism...as long as one is waving the flag while doing it. The half-witted hysteria over the smallest thing. The unrelenting and often slanderous hatred of the current President. Or anyone in the media...unless he/she happens to be addicted to Oxycontin or have a framed photo of Hitler in his...or her office (I haven't forgotten you, Ann Coulter!).

I know a blogger like that. A rabidly insecure person who seems incapable of writing--or recogizing-- a happy thought unless it's about Fantasy Football and, even then, the words come across like a  hot slap in the face. A bitter, angry person who is threatened by mouthy women in public office, unless they're the kind who wear designer glasses and quit a job before it's finished.

This sometime blogger is part of that keening chorus of doomsayers who exploit the missteps of their targeted political enemies while excusing or even justifying the same mistakes that come from their own camp. The kind who marinate in rumor-mongering ( "It's on Snopes.com so it HAS to be right...OMG!!!") to incite fear amongst weaker minded compatriots.  Civil discourse can't unfold with this individual and any salient points I might make are responded to with a childish "Blah, blah, blah".  No, really. That's the response. It's the blogger equivalent of plugging one's ears with fingers and shouting, "I can't hear you! I can't hear you!"  My student--the one who keeps spelling his  own name wrong-- could come up with something better than that. Which is why I don't comment on that site anymore. I do, however, check in briefly now and then just to see how unfulfillment can turn a person's brain in on itself.

It's an odd and unexplainable comfort  that the actual hits on this blogger's site are so very sparse and the commenters are even fewer...when there are any at all.  Most featured diatribes bring forth a hearty ZERO in the comments department, which makes me wonder where the satisfaction lies in writing to yourself, since that's certainly what's going on there. 

And see...despite how good it felt to say the words that are situated just above the ones you're reading now, there's a dirty residue that lingers.  The kind of feeling that comes right after you verbally assassinate someone...even someone who definitely has it coming. The initial emotion is one of acute relief. It's heady and powerful and it makes your heart race. But it also makes you realize what you're capable of.  How easy it is to find yourself in the gutter of anti-rationalism. That you can--just like them-- stoop to dive head-first into the giant slopjar of  pessimism and intolerance and swim around. The righteous indignation feels right at first...and then it just starts to feel...well...reich.

I'm glad I can't do it all the time and I wonder about those who can and do. About those who thrive on it and make their shameful living by it...as well as those who believe they coulda-shoulda-woulda  been a contendah but--instead--faithfully record their toxic  yammerings for an invisible audience . My sweet husband likes to say that people like that probably didn't get enough hugs as a kid.

Me? I think they didn't get enough pumpkins.

Stuff That's Not Work...Mostly

I hiked down to the river today...mostly for the opportunity to move my body, but also because I wanted nothing more than to sit on a flat rock and breathe deeply. Not talking. Not saying "ssssshhhh!" to anyone.  Just listening to the rushing water and feeling the sun on my face.

Guess what makes you appreciate being on the outside for a change?

Being on the inside.

It rained most of last week and the weekend before that. The kind of rain that makes you feel trapped everywhere you go. Perpetual night...even in the afternoon. Cozy at first...and then claustrophobic eventually. On the evening that the weather changed I went out, hoping for a chance to run. I ended up walking, listening to music and wandering into the sunset which seemed to perch just over my house. The store down the street was emptying and I stopped because I didn't know if the sky would ever look like this again.

Last week we took the 5th grade class downtown to the Bass Performance Hall. Many had never been downtown, much less go inside inside this gorgeous building. We listened to some Aaron Copeland selections played by our city's symphony orchestra. I think it was overwhelming for many of them. Our class sat on the top two rows, which was--I think--an empowering place to be. It was dark and cool and the music was beautiful. As atrociously as they behaved on the bus, their demeanor was completely different when inside.  While I don't believe that they understood this venue to be something that others experience on a regular basis (and that they--as citizens-- do not), I do think they were able to grasp the fact that a kind of reverence was called for.

As we climbed the stairs to the upper gallery, one of the Special Ed students paused to take it all in. I pointed out the hand-painted domed ceiling and asked if she knew what was being depicted in it.

She looked at me confidently and smiled saying, "Oh, I know what you call it. That place up there? That's heaven."

Maybe it was.

In other news, my dad's surgery was a success. I thank all of you for your positive thoughts. Also, it seems I'm most likely going to be staying where I am for the time being, school-wise. I'm not sure how I dodged that bullet, but I did. Maybe the powers-that-be saw that moving me would create more chaos than already exists in our little slice of the 'hood, as hard as that might be to imagine.

For example, I had a student called out of class by a CPS worker to tell her that her nephew had been taken away from his mother, who was the 16-year old sister of the girl in question. She became hysterical and had to go home early. And then there is the troubled boy (in my homeroom, of course) who got suspended for exposing himself to some younger boys in the restroom. I wish I could say I was surprised, but I'm not.

Once when I was home with the two oldest boys and pregnant with the third one, my editor at the newspaper phoned with an assignment. His elderly mother was there for a visit and he spoke of my attempts to mix a career with the raising of small children. And then he told me that he had a message for me from his mother. He said, "Mother says you don't know it right now, but that where you are in life--with these little boys--is heaven. You're in heaven...but you won't know it until later."

Oh...I knew it alright.

For some, I guess, heaven is a hand-painted ceiling.  I mean, why not? Higher and grander than anything ever seen. The kind of thing that makes your voice drop to a whisper as you grasp the cool brass handrail and allow yourself to be swallowed whole by an otherworldly music. The kind that doesn't call for violence and rattle the windows of the car next to you. 

 But it's also staying home with two little guys (and housing the third one under your heart) who like to dig in the backyard and wear hard hats and Bert-and-Ernie house shoes. I'll take the latter any day. Like Frost's "road less traveled", it has made all the difference.

A Patchwork Quilt of Crazy

Where do I start? With the fact that I pulled up stakes at the Women's Colony and I'm down to one post per week here at the Lounge...or the regrettable situation that forces me to admit I rarely visit other blogs of late?

My much-needed and joyful return to yoga or the fact that I limped away from school on Friday with a duffle bag of papers and books and the words of an administrator/lecturer ringing in my ears who told us (at teacher's training session) that 65% of the blame for a student's failure rests with the teacher? What the hell?

The fact that I'm finally feeling as though I'm in my element at this tiny school or the news that tomorrow marks the day when I find out--because of uneven enrollment throughout the district--that (due to my "last hired" status)--I could be moved to another building within the week?

That a good friend's son (and a childhood friend of one of my own kids)  came through brain surgery this week with positive results or that I sat through the funeral of a high school classmate's son (the same age as my oldest) and listened along with a packed sanctuary as his peers sobbed and his father bravely eulogized him?

The unbelievable clockwork rightness of the 5th grade team I'm so blessed to work with or the lone faculty holdout who hates my guts for reasons that are still a mystery?

The renewal of an old friendship or my father's upcoming heart surgery?

Can I just say it? SHIT! I'm drawn and quartered. Keel-hauled under the ship of life. Pushed this way and that. Parent conferences with guardians who cry because their lonely children have no friends or fathers who ignore me in stone-face anger when I  present them with evidence that their children are cheats and liars? All of it makes me sad and angry and helpless.

The cool new project I found that will draw my students' study of a novel to a creative close or the possibility that I won't be here to help them do it after tomorrow?

I try to focus on the small things. I have a job. My marriage is the light of my life. Our kids are happy and productive and they don't hate us. I finished a book this weekend. My oldest actually saved the receipt for his broken iPod. My youngest finished his World History study guide before it was due. The middle boy is successfully balancing a demanding college semester. And his childhood friend who had to withdraw from college because a rogue strep virus invaded his brain...is still alive and cracking jokes.

I am bewildered and grateful. Fearful and calm. My ear is to the ground. I await for the sound of approaching hoofbeats signalling the latest news and I hope for something good.

I'm still here and I hope to get by soon. Keep a light on.

Time To Make The Doughnuts

Taken with my iPhone

If you remember the Dunkin' Donut commercial about the sleepy man rising at 5 a.m to make donuts for his franchise? Well...that's me every day, so far. If you actually remember the commercial, then you get it. If you don't well...then I guess you had to be there. Use the photo above as a visual. I risked my life to take it while driving on my morning commute. THAT'S how desperate I am for blog fodder much I care, people. I'm still a little amazed that I'm able to rise that early and function (mostly) in a coherent manner all day long. I believe I've mentioned before that I'm not a morning person.

And another thing? I fully realize that Dunkin' spells their delectable delicacies one way and my title implies that it should be spelled another.  I--of course--am right. I refuse to cave to incorrect spelling in order to comply with commercial cuteness. I have standards. As Nils likes to say: Your mileage may vary, however.

Tomorrow begins Week Four of my stint as a 5th grade teacher. There have been highs and lows and a lot of in-betweens. Surprising moments where students I thought I wouldn't be able to reach...suddenly started trying. One boy in particular. I tutored him last year and I really wasn't sure about whether or not he could successfully complete this year. I gave him a little pep talk and told him that, with a little effort, he could actually start making passing grades and you know what? He is. He talks less in class and his grades have started to rise. I'm almost afraid to look at it too closely for fear the whole thing is actually just a dream. I'm not quite ready to call NBC and petition for my own television show (Anne Sullivan: Miracle Worker has a nice ring)  just yet, but it's a start.

On the other hand, here's an interesting tally of excuses as to why only four of my 17 homeroom students had parents show up to Open House last Thursday night.

Thursday night meeting at the Kingdom Hall -1

Parents work out at 24- Hour Fitness every evening at that time-1

Grandmother was in a pool tournament and mother had to pick her up-1

Both parents work the night shift-1

It was raining too hard-8

What? Open House was last night????-1

_________

And last but not least...? Saturday's mail delivered an officious and official-looking envelope from the Republican National Committee. (We voted in a primary once---much like all those Hillary Clinton votes cast by Obama-fearing conservatives last year--to help our Democratic candidate and now we get junk mailers like this). This one contained ominous phrases like " tracking numbers" and "Do Not Destroy. Do Not Destroy on the envelope and inside the letter. Masquerading as a opinion poll, the purpose was to incite fear, disloyalty and collect money for their hate campaign against  President Obama and---in the process---America. I mean...that's what they always said it meant if you couldn't back the leader of the Free World. Anyway...I dutifully read their trumped-up charges and chuckled appropriately in all the right places...and then I filed it in the only place fit to store missives such as this.

Do Not Destroy. I choose to take that as an option rather than a threat. I'll take my chances on the consequences. Have a good week.

Rich Is Relative

I pride myself on getting through the day while multi-tasking. I talk on my iPhone while I run or walk on the track at the university.  I've learned to make copies of worksheets and run the laminator at the same time. I brush my teeth while checking my email in the morning. I put makeup on while I drive to work in the dark while I'm standing in front of a fully lit mirror. Honest, officer!

But a word to the wise? Don't settle down alone (or even with a loved one) to watch an episode of "Hoarders" while eating dinner. It's rather dismaying to watch 37+ diseased and dead cats be removed from a garage piled with garbage while tucking into a bowl of homemade soup and cornbread.  Perhaps this goes without saying for some of you, but I learned it the hard way.

____________

In other news, I'm reading Ruby K. Payne's A Framework for Understanding Poverty and it's really speaking to me in a way I didn't anticipate. It's become increasingly clear to me that I speak a language that many of my kids don't speak. And when I say this, I'm not referring to the whole Spanish versus English thing, although that would apply here as well.

I mean that people who live in poverty, as it turns out, speak/think in a different code than the rest of us.  Before, this book I merely suspected that I was trying to use the "martian" language of the middle class to talk to my kids about staying in school. For them, the concept of education is, according to Payne, valued...but only in an abstract way.

I've realized of late that, in the same way I don't understand what motivates a wealthy person to care about cars as a status symbol, rather than reliable transportation? Many of my students don't understand why it matters whether or not a person acquires food or clothing through good hard work...or because someone gives it to them for free. To me, that would matter. To them, it doesn't. Ditto for how much effort they put into their own school work.

I can only use the language of my expectations if my students (and their families) are interested in leaving the mire of poverty and entering the middle class. Otherwise, I might as well be a martian.

Last week, a kid asked me if I was rich. Of course not, I replied. Not indignantly so, but in a way that implied how utterly flummoxed I was that someone would see me that way. I'm a  public school teacher after all. And yet..

...after I returned to my desk...I saw this in a frame...

...and I realized that the answer to my student's question should have been a very honest "yes".

 

The State I'm In

Here are the various ways some of my students spelled " New Hampshire" on last week's worksheet that covered a novel we're studying:

1. New Hamispere

2.  New Hamshere

3. New Hampshare

4. New Hamshire

5. New Hapshire

6. New Hamster

You're probably thinking I should cut these 5th graders some slack and lay off on the fact that they can't spell a place they've never heard of. Yes, that's right. Many have never heard of New Hampshire, though it's not too surprising when you realize that a good chunk of these kids have never left the city they were born in...let alone the state of Texas. That said, my issue isn't so much with bad spelling, although I'd be lying if I said that misspelled words (especially in adults) don't make me want to take a hammer to my own head.

It's because the name of the state in question was right there in front of them. In the book they were holding as they labored on a worksheet designed for the novel we're presently reading. The story happened to be set in New Hampshire and because I'm trying to incorporate our study of English/Language Arts with an attempt to get them to pull their heads out of their butts awareness of Geography (I keep a big map in the classroom at all times), we paused on two separate days to point out where Texas was located...and then where New Hampshire was located.  Twice. With a map. And then we talked about the novel and what the characters were doing and why it made sense that they wished for warmer weather because they were living in New Hampshire. In February.

So, not only was I surprised that they couldn't COPY the name of a state out of a book they were holding in their own two unwashed hands...I was further chapped that one girl's answer regarding the book's setting was...wait for it....Hawaii.  All that lecturing talking for nothing.

It's like the old saying: Some days it's just not worth chewing through the restraints.

I'm enjoying the work, but I'm barely keeping my head above the surface in this veritable ocean of paperwork. Like I said, I drive to work when it's dark and I go home in Drive Time traffic. The conference period of an elementary school teacher is a joke. 45 minutes IF the PE/Art/Music teacher actually shows up to take your kids on time...and less if they don't, which is par for this course. So that means most of our planning and team meeting is done before or after school.

On the upside, I adore the co-teachers on my team and we're a cohesive troika of exhaustion and high hopes. My principal's a dream and the tutors coming in to help in two weeks are a GODSEND. And yes..it's only been a week, but I'm already getting attached to some of them. The kids...not the tutors. Others? Will take more time. I've already had a phone conference with a parent over a  forged parental signature on our weekly assignment sheets, but I'm thinking the conference probably doesn't count since I WASN'T REALLY TALKING TO THE PARENT AT ALL--BUT RATHER--THE STUDENT'S OLDER SISTER OR BROTHER WHO WAS PRETENDING TO BE THE PARENT.

And even though I finally "busted" said student for lying to me, I'm guessing the score is still:

Kid:1

Mrs. B: 0

At least...for now. The story isn't over yet. Stay tuned.

Out of Sight. Out of Mind. Out of Toilet Paper.

I remember the days when I really thought of teaching as an 8-3:30 job. What a fool I was!

Would it shock you to know that I'm leaving for work at 6:20 in the morning so that I can have an hour to copy papers, organize files, tighten up lesson plans and enjoy the quiet before the thundering herd comes in? Let me remind you that I am NO KIND of a morning person. Not even a little bit. So it has to follow that those who know me in my real life are most likely shaking their heads and wondering if I'm not on some kind of  awesome drug therapy. Or maybe if those recent shock treatments helped reboot my hard wiring just a bit. (I kid! I kid!) But I have to say that the 22-minute commute from my home to the school is awfully pleasant. It's dark when I pull out of my driveway and there aren't that many people on the roads. I can breathe and listen to music and get my bearings.

Of course, it comes to a crashing halt once I wander down to the auditorium to pick up my little dumplings and I keep my shoulder to the wheel until 2:15 when my 45- minute (all too short) planning period comes around. Before that I get 30 minutes for lunch, though it's really 25 because the ladies who monitor the cafeteria enjoy turning my kids out early...just as I'm sneaking off to the faculty bathroom.

The upside? I'm losing weight because there's no time to eat, even though some of that weight is muscle because I'm not working out either. Most days I don't leave the building until 4 or so. It makes for a long stretch of being on my feet while juggling students of varying abilities. Today I was "visited" by three inclusion kids from the "link" class which, for the uninitiated, serves kids who are (in many cases) mentally disabled. Our class was working on a novel and I was honestly puzzled as to how I was expected to help educate a trio of children who are incapable of spelling their own names or understanding the severity of their own predicament. I was further heartbroken to hear an animated young boy tell about how his father killed two of their kittens (in front of the children) by breaking their necks. The boy even mimicked the way their pets' heads lolled to one side afterwards.

I really needed a moment alone after that, but where was I supposed to go on a crowded playground full of screaming kids? So I just stayed there and acted as though that kind of thing happens every day.

Meanwhile we're running low on everything at the Apathy Lounge and youngest boy needs school supplies and forms signed. And a ride to school and a ride home from football. Dinner needs to be made and I haven't been to workout in almost two weeks. The house is a pit, but who's getting stuck with all this while I'm off trying to teach the finer points of reading to 5th graders? I'll tell you who.

My husband, the saintly soul that he is has gladly shouldered everything I used to do with nary a complaint. Picking up prescriptions and the dry cleaning and the odd jug of milk. He makes our bed and cleans the breakfast dishes every day before he leaves for work. And while I'm AWOL from my own life and that of my other loved ones, I find I'm almost too tired to feel guilty about it.

Almost.