I won't be seeing my kids faces for two whole weeks!

Bliss. Yesterday was every teachers nightmare. There was absolutely nothing we could do about any misbehavior (all of the staff for that was gone, they knew we couldn't give them detention or suspend them right at the end, so on), so the kids went buck wild. For the first time since the beginning of the school year, they just refused to listen to me. I would shout at them and they would completely ignore me. It reminded me of how far we have come because they just don't do that anymore and I had forgotten that they ever had. It was nice to see that they, at least, somewhat listen to me normally.

As soon as the bell rang, I and a fellow teacher ran to a restaurant and slammed down a jack and coke. Just one. I had packed the night before, so I was ready to leave the Mount! As I went to my car to jet on outta there, I realized that the rain looked funny. Turns out, it was snowing! But it was a silly little snow that made me laugh because they were such tiny flakes and they were dissolving in mid-air. Plus it was all sunny in the sky and warmish. But it made me happy that it was snowing a little and not enough to make my trip to Chapel Hill hazardous.

Now I am in Chapel Hill...sleeping, mostly. I may go see a movie in a bit. Then sleep some more. I am trying to gather energy to be a playmate to my four-year-old neice and my 9-month-old nephew. I'm so excited.  ¶ 8:33 AM

  One more half day to go...

I got a Christmas card from a student today. It reads:

To my A+ Teacher and My most coolest Techer I have had some of my Superb! In your class have a happy Holiday
From: Isiah

I learned four things from this card:

1. Isiah maybe doesn't hate me after all.
2. I have been misspelling his name for four months.
3. We need to do a lot more grammar, spelling, and writing work.
4. They did learn how to use the colon!

I went out to breakfast, this morning, with the whole eighth grade department at my school. I learned a lot from just sitting and listening to their stories of how their year has been going. It is nice (and awful) to learn that it is not just me having a difficult time getting the kids to pass their tests and behave. Even the most veteran teachers are struggling. When I told some story of how I had reacted to some situation or another (I think I told them that I had let a sick child call home), all of the older teachers laughed and rolled their eyes. One of them said, "Oh, you still have empathy! That'll pass!"

It is pretty official in my mind that this is my first and last year teaching. I do still have empathy and I am not looking forward to the time when I don't. Some days I already don't. I really just know that teaching is not for me, and at 28-years-old I just don't feel like I have the time to spend two years doing something that is not for me. But I am holding steady for this year. And I will always have an overwhelming respect for career teachers.  ¶ 1:24 PM

  After yesterday's trauma, I decided that I deserved a day off.

So today I treated myself to hours of reality television and doing laundry in my own sweet time. I also treated myself to a Subway sandwich (another one of my comforts) and a Dr. Pepper. Things are looking up today.

I am also thankful today for Nicole...she has a lovely blog of her own that many of you reading link to at posthipchick.blogspot.com. I am thankful to her because we were in college together and went through the whole TFA application and interview process together, too. I am so glad that I have a friend who is dealing with the same stuff I am all the time. It is nice to talk to someone who knew me before TFA about all this stuff. I feel a lot less crazy about it.

So I think I will just go get my laundry out of the dryer, now. Then I will have a Queer as Folk marathon (I rented a DVD from the movie store). In this way, I will prepare myself for the last two (half!) days of teaching middle-school for this year.  ¶ 4:16 PM

  So, I realized today that all the bad days I've had were not really that bad. I learned that because I actually had a really bad day today.

During homeroom, one of my students had a grand mal seizure...complete with blood coming out of her nose and mouth. Because I have First Responder certification, I was officially the most highly trained medical staff at my school. Due to budget cuts, we only have a nurse on Wednesdays.

She stopped breathing for a couple of seconds and I was faced with the realization that I was going to have to give mouth to mouth. But luckily, she started up again. The ambulance took a long time to arrive.

One positive was that the rest of my students were really great. They didn't laugh or take the opportunity to go nuts. They sat quietly and showed a lot of empathy for the student, later. I'm still waiting to hear how she is doing. She has no history of seizure, so the paramedics thought that maybe she had a high fever due to the flu.

This flu thing is hitting a little close all of a sudden. Another one of my students went to the hospital yesterday with a 107 degree fever. She didn't have the dramatics of the seizure, but she very well could have. I have a bit of a fever myself and am considering just staying home for the rest of the week.

I am very ready to have a vacation and not be responsible for the lives of others. It was very heavy to feel like it was up to me to save this girl. I don't feel trained enough for that. I am very angry that we don't have a nurse on campus at all times. You would think we could get the money for that somewhere.   ¶ 9:10 PM

  Know what's fun? Lying.

Tonight I went to a coffee shop to celebrate the accomplishments of a few of my students who did really well on their progress reports. It is a little function put on by my team teacher. Only two kids showed up and they were over an hour late. Which means I was stuck chatting with the other teacher.

I don't like being stuck having real conversations with people around here...on account of being in the closet and all. Whenever I am left alone with other women, they always ask me about dating and stuff. They are being friendly, but I always feel awkward.

So she began to quiz me about past relationships, etc. I became uncomfortable about changing pronouns, gender, and so on. But then I had a breakthrough! It would be so much less awkward if there was no truth whatsoever to what I was saying! So I began to spin a tale for her of heartbreak and drama that would make you weep. She got a tear in her eye.

I characterized my life as a series of unfortunate periods where dedicated men loved and lost me...all due to my wretched independant nature and the fact that I just "couldn't settle down". I told her about Jeff, the artist, who wanted nothing more than for me to drop everything and move to Paris with him (Paris being the only place he thought he could really accomplish his "work"). I, of course, ran away from his love and moved to California, knowing that I could never really dedicate myself to him the way he deserved. Especially since I had such important work of my own to do and found it impossible to compromise...even for love. I admitted that, to this day, I receive heartrending postcards from him (he's never really loved again).

I told her about the others I'd left behind, too. Of course, this is all a huge lie. There is no Jeff or anything of the sort. And I am the one, usually, in my relationships that is left behind in my partner's cruel trail of ambition. But it was much more comfortable to lie completely than to just lie about the gender of the person I am dating/ have dated. And it was really fun.

On a different topic, I am slightly disturbed by the web that I have woven (weaved?) with this blog. I am finding that I am popping up everywhere on internet searches...in places that I would not have expected. Because I write the words "Rocky Mount" and "Teach for America" all the time, I pop up when others enter those words for entirely unrelated searches. I only mention because it is beginning to dawn on me that this blog may be very easy to come across...by people like other teachers at my school and the parents of my students. I can see how my silly musings could easily blow up in my face. Oh, well. The blog has become a beast of its own-- who am I to attempt to contain it? The internet is a wily venue for my thoughts.

4 days until vacation.  ¶ 9:39 PM

  Trying to write a cummulative test for my students is a very humbling task.

What I have realized, as I have begun to write a two hour test for my students to assess what they have learned from me this last four months, is that they haven't learned more than four or five things from me. Well, this is what I thought at first when I tried to make a test. They haven't learned much that relates to the North Carolina State Standards. But here is a small list of what I think they have learned:

1. What the word harmony means.
2. That saying the word faggot is hurtful and never allowed in my class.
3. That you can get arrested for protesting a war and not just selling drugs.
4. Spitting in a trash can indoors is gross and means you'll never get a date in high school.
5. You can be funny and sarcastic without being mean.
6. Cussing makes you sound stupid.
7. Al Gore is not the same person as George Bush.
8. Having Arnold as California govenor is stupid.
9. You don't have to jump up and spin around a room to show that you are excited...you can use words!
10.If you have more than one penny you say "cents", plural! Not fifty-cent, but fifty-cents.

So, maybe that wasn't what they were supposed to learn...I can't give them a test on it, anyway. But I can feel okay about it.  ¶ 9:26 PM