I just found out that someone found my blog by typing in "what to do about a teacher screaming at her class" into google. I don't know how I feel about that.   ¶ 5:07 PM

  It is always kind of exciting to come back to school after a day off to see what occured in your absence. Being a teacher sort of makes me feel very important. I honestly have trouble understanding what my class would do without me. They are so difficult for me to handle, I always wish I could be a fly on the wall when someone else is there.

This was the best absence yet. Nothing stolen...as far as I can tell right now. And the sub said they were all pretty good.

The only trouble was really weird trouble. I have a student named Geneva who is really nice and sweet. She asked at the beginning of the year if she could sit at the table on the side of the room. I said, "Sure." So there she has been, all this time. Sweet as a pea.

I recently created a new seating chart and I forgot to write down that Geneva sits at the table. So yesterday, apparently, the sub didn't see her name on the seating chart and asked her to sit in a chair. Then, though I cannot imagine this at all, hell broke loose. Geneva freaked out in some major way, refused to sit in a chair, began cussing at the substitute, got sent to the office, and then started throwing things at the Assistant Principal. She is suspended for three days.

It is never what you think it is going to be. Who knew that her whole world was wrapped up in sitting at the table? I had no idea it was so important to her. I feel bad, because I should have written it down, but at the same time-- there is no excuse for her to act that way. I should probably call home and ask her what the hell she was thinking.

It is the weekend! Tonight I am going to Henderson to hang out with my friend Terri, who is a third (umm...fourth?) grade teacher. I am going to the elementary school "Fall Festival", so that should be exciting. I am hoping for little ones in fall costumes, but I don't know if that is what this is all about. It is amazing what I now do for entertainment. Then, to Chapel Hill, my home away from...well, Rocky Mount.  ¶ 9:07 AM

  So the car is going to be fine. It will cost about three hundred dollars at some point, but it is not so dire that it can't wait a bit. Compared to the blown engine on the last car, I feel fairly lucky. Even being in Durham for a few hours wasn't so painful. The two guys that worked at the shop were unbelievably (and at a certain point, creepily) friendly. We talked and talked until finally one of them asked me if I wanted to go somewhere. So he took me to 9th street, this kind of college street near Duke, and I got breakfast at this cute place and then planned for next week at this coffee shop.

It is really really nice to not be at school today. And tomorrow is Friday and nothing real ever happens on Friday anyway. And then there is a nice weekend to look forward to, followed by Monday at work, and then Tuesday off for Vetrans Day. Good times.

I have so much to do before the weekend...laundry, getting my nails done. Sometimes I wish I never started this whole getting my nails done thing-- it is really a never-ending task...but the girls in my class really relate to my acrylic french manicure and I think I would probably to even more drastic things like get a nose job if it helped them relate to me. But I am sleepy, so I am off to nap.

It is so fun to find out that people I don't know are reading the blog...I wonder who else is out there...  ¶ 1:52 PM

  I am feeling very homesick, tonight. And I am not even sure what home I am sick for. Maybe the Bay, where my friends are. Maybe Portland, where my family is.

I am a little tired of being surrounded by new things. I am enjoying my time here, but I think I need a break. I miss being around familiar and predictable people and things. I am also oddly exhausted and have been for a couple of weeks. I don't get enough sleep or exercise. Just in a funk, I guess.

And my students are so...much. They take up ninty percent of my brain at all times. I feel overwhelmed by all of their needs and wants and problems. I need to carve out more of a life of my own here and not just wait for weekends to come so I can go to Chapel Hill. I know what things would make me feel better, but I am so tired at the end of the day, I don't do any of them.

But tomorrow I have the day off to take my perfect little car to the VW mechanic. Her check engine light is on, which stresses me out. I hope it is nothing serious. And I hope there is a coffee shop near the mechanic shop.   ¶ 11:06 PM

  Today I had to turn in my grades for the last six weeks. I am pretty proud because only four of my kids failed. I am not sure if that means that I am not being harsh enough or that they are doing more work.

But I do have a success story. One of my students spent the first six weeks sleeping and didn't turn in a thing. But in the last three weeks, we did an intervention and he has really started to improve. He went from an F to a C for this report card. It was really a pleasure to see him light up when I told him his grade. The more success he has, the more he wants to be successful. I wish all of the kids took to it like that.  ¶ 8:51 AM

  Well, it was one of those awkward situations that I have been having since I got here. Being closeted means that when other people are having conversations about past relationships and boyfriends, I have the choice of either changing pronouns and stuff or seeming like I have never in my life had a relationship and not be able to ever join in the conversations. I like to be part of conversations too much to do that all of the time.

So, today, a teacher that I hang out with a lot were outside and chatting. She was telling me these stories and I joined in the conversation, but at some point she asked me point blank the name of the "guy" I was talking about. One thing I have always drawn the line at is doing things like calling a "Julie" a "Julian" or something, so I tried to avoid it. But I tried to avoid it for so long that I started to look like a freak and I think she began to think that I just didn't want to tell her because I didn't trust her or something. It got very awkward.

So finally, I turned to her and said, "Well, the thing is-- the guy? He is really a girl."

I have never witnessed such a reaction. In the West, people are just sort of used to it and would at least try to be cool. But her jaw just dropped and it was awful to watch. Awful and awkward and I didn't know what to do.

But at the end of the day, she was going out of her way to be friendly to me, I think. She is young and I think she likes me so I think this will be okay. I worry a little about it getting out. I worry a little about losing one of two friends I have there. But I also feel really great about the fact that I have probably rocked her perceptions a bit. I hope that it is all worth it.  ¶ 4:26 PM

  Um, I came out to a very very very straight teacher here today. I don't know why I did it. It was unplanned and uncontrollable.

I'm kind of freaked out.

More later...  ¶ 12:43 PM

  Big talk earlier. Oh, yeah. I am so tired of doing this! Sorry to be so all over the place, but jeez! I don't know why my tolerance for them is so low right now. I am tired of talking over them and making a million really important decisions every day.

One day it is deciding whether or not to turn them in for stealing from me...AGAIN. They are stealing all the time from my room. Stealing things that are meant for them anyway. Then it is deciding whether or not to turn them in for blatently cheating on tests, assignments, printing poems from the internet and handwriting their names on them. They lie to me constantly. Kids or no kids, it gets really old.

I may just be having a crappy evening. In fact, I am having a crappy evening for a million reasons. But even so, I can't believe I have to do this for another 7 months.

Pardon my angry first year teacher rants. Positivity will resume soon. Promise.  ¶ 11:11 PM

  I am having a Teach for America moment, where I realize that I have this huge responsibility to these kids. And also that I have sort of been giving up on them. I can hardly believe that it only took a couple of months for me to do exactly what TFA tells you not to do.

I am going to try harder today. I am going to try to remember not to take things so personally and remember that they are the children and I am the adult. What they say and do does not have to effect me personally, right?

Then again, it is only 7:30am and I have yet to see a child today. We'll see how I do. But I do need to recommit myself to this thing. I need to be a grown-up.  ¶ 7:38 AM

  I think that I have forgotten how to think about being a teacher. I really have so much to do today-- like new seating charts for my classes, an entire unit for poetry, etc. I really want to make them love poetry the way that I love poetry and I have a lot of good ideas, but it would be very easy for me to be lazy and just do book work. The thing is, when I try to do exciting things, the kids go nuts. Like I have all of these dreams of playing music and relating poetry to folk songs and things, but all of these things go easily out of hand. I can picture putting on some of my favorite songs that I consider amazing poetry and having all of them bitch and whine about how they hate my music and why can't we listen to 50 Cent, etc. That will break my heart.

But I think I am going to try it anyway. I think I am going to go to the coffee shop or the library in Rocky Mount (which is actually quite big and nice) and just buckle down. This is what I think, even though I have been doing nothing but cleaning my apartment like a madwoman and emailing people all morning. The cleaning was necessary...I guess the emailing, too, works to keep me a bit sane.

Last night as I was driving to Rocky Mount kind of late, I came very close to hitting a deer while going 70 miles an hour. This brought back this summer when Owen and I did actually hit a deer going 70 miles an hour and even more recently the fact that Owen dressed up as said dead deer for Halloween. It was really scary to slam on my breaks on the freeway going that fast and as I contemplated my death, I almost laughed at the irony of it. But then I did not die and neither did the deer and we are both very pleased.  ¶ 12:32 PM