Unless

Friday.  The first real week of school is over. 

                I can hardly begin to summarize the events of this week and last and how stressful, fun and awful it’s been.  So far I only have 2 students that I want to kill and have only had one completely sleepless night.  My grade 10 classes are wonderful and even though they’re a bit rowdy I have previous relationships with almost all of them which means we will never be short on participation. 

                Yesterday one of my students informed me that my name is written in graffiti on the wall of the boys bathroom under the phrase “#1 TILF”…I’m only mildly offended.  And mildly flattered.

                I’ve got one 9^th grade boy who is just a complete jackass.  I don’t even know where to begin but he refuses to listen to me and he refuses to do any of his work.  Another boy is incredibly needy and is in my room every day after school and every lunch talking to me about his life and his feelings (so wonderful and helpful in understanding him, but not so conducive to getting planning and marking done)  and yet another boy clearly has developmental needs and yet no one has tested him or written a plan for him.  When I pulled his file I discovered that he failed both fifth and sixth grade AND failed EVERY CLASS in both seventh and eighth grade!  And somehow here’s here in high school with no testing or question as to why he is incapable of succeeding in school.  I’m shocked.  He’s incredibly disruptive and frustrating to have in class.  I started making a “Beer Tally” for myself this week, every time my patience was severely tried I added a tally to the list of beers I deserve for not blowing up. 

                I may become an alcoholic by the end of next week.

                All in all though I find that teaching my own class is surprisingly fun.  I love these students (even the difficult ones…though a bit less than the un-difficult ones) and I love the times when I get to teach something I really love.  Social studies is my FAVORITE class, those kids are wonderful and I’m so happy to get to continue working with them after meeting them last year and I LOVE teaching history.  It’s so fun to try to make these ancient stories relatable to them.

                I keep repeating to myself the quote from The Lorax, “Unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot, nothing is going to get better.  It’s not.”  Whenever I’m frustrated with a student I just need to remember that I was put here for a reason – to serve these teenagers.  And being servant hearted is not supposed to be comfortable.

Napoleon Chronicles - Part 6

Almost 3 weeks ago I was driving home from church on the freeway between Interstate 5 and my house when I saw what I thought was a piece of garbage in my lane.  Since I was near the end of a construction zone I slowed down so that I could go around this object because I wasn't sure how damaging hitting a construction item would be to my car.  However when I got closer I realized that it wasn't garbage at all but a TINY KITTEN crouching in the road.  I pulled over immediately and without much thought ran out into the road, signalling for other cars to slow while I retrieved the kitten that was frozen in fear in the middle of the highway.

Three weeks later and Otis (aka - Road Kill) and Napoleon are nearly inseparable.  Today as I was leaving to make a trip to the grocery store I went to put Napoleon away in his crate and Otis ran in after him and plopped down in the back of the crate while Napoleon curled up next to him.  I sat there bewildered for a moment before closing the gate and leaving with a big smile on my face.  The wrestle each other and run laps around the house and even attempt to share each other's food (though I highly discourage this whenever I catch them).  It's like a scene straight out of "Fox and the Hound", they're the best of friends and aren't even aware they're such a funny pair.

Unfortunately since I am engaged to be married in October, Napoleon and I will be moving in with Paul and my step-dog Jake, a 9 year old boxer/lab mix who is adorable and sweet and loving but who has an intense fixation with cats.  So far he has been unable to adjust to the kitten's presence in the house and more often than not attempts to chase Otis down with aggressive barks that frighten me.  It pains me to watch Napoleon and Otis cuddle knowing that their future together looks bleak. And that is nothing to the pain I feel when I imagine parting with Otis and giving him to another family.  Though I suppose THAT is nothing to the pain I would feel if I came home and found that Jake had eaten poor Otis :/

Life is tough.

I Am

Challenge 1 - I Am

So Dancing Wolf and I have started our visual journals and I decided to take up the Journal Fodder Junkies Challenge and make one page each week or so responding to one of their prompts.  The first challenge has to do with introducing yourself and reflecting on how you perceive who you are right now.  My life is fairly cheery and I'm in a place where I'm not quite in one place or another, still transitioning from what my life was like before to what it will eventually become (blah blah blah gag on the deepness of my mind).  Anyway, I made my  collage and introduced myself to the world.

I'm not a girl - not yet a woman.  All I need is time.  A moment that is mine.  While I'm inbetween...Amen Britney...Amen.

Journal Junkies

I love my job for a lot of reasons.  Over the last few months I've been spending a lot of time with a handful of freshman girls at school, getting to know them and share in their jokes and hardships.
This week one of the girls (we'll call her...Dancing Wolf...that came out of nowhere...) she and I got to talking about our journals and how addicted we are and how sometimes you need to be able to express yourself differently so I introduced her to the concept of a visual journal.  I've made visual journals before but really only for academic projects or gifts for others.  I have the occasional page that could maybe be classified as such but it's never integrated itself into my regular journalling routine.  Truthfully I've been journalling more in the last year than I ever have before.  Since September I've filled one and a half books which is unprecedented for me.

Anyways, Dancing Wolf and I have gotten really excited about this new idea and incorporating something like this into our "reflective lives" we like to call it.  It makes me feel so earthy and introspective to think like this.  She's been collecting materials like crazy for us to start our projects, I like that we have something to bond over and I always love any opportunity to teach someone something new about themselves.

In other news - Napoleon has finally learned the meaning of the leash and has taken to grabbing it from wherever it is, either hanging on a hook or laying on the floor and trying to bring it to me to put on him so I can take him for a walk.  Cutest thing you've ever seen, I'll try to capture his antics on video soon to share with you all.

Falling for you

This morning I was sitting cross legged on my bed watching an episode of melodramatic television where one character is scared she's having a crack baby when lunchtime rolled around. I went to get out of bed and I collapsed face first onto the ground because my feet were asleep.  Not the tingly "Oh that feels like needles" asleep - fully asleep.  My legs were so numb that I was then incapable of standing up let alone walking.  It was like watching a baby horse try to take it's first steps, only one of it's legs has been cut off.  Nothing like a good old facial rug burn to start off an empty Friday.

Plague of the Lactose and Shower Intolerant Para-Educator

At the beginning of January I started working after school in the Language Arts lab helping students get caught up on work, helping them edit papers, or helping them with SAT prep (among other things). That's not really the interesting part of this story though.  Each afternoon I run the lab alongside a para-educator who also works in the school - after today's events I will call her "Smelly Feet".  I can't believe I haven't written about her sooner because at LEAST once a day she does or says something gross.  Typically it's in the form of stories - like the time she explained in detail all the ways her body has changed since high school or telling me about her lactose intolerance and how it makes her gassy in front of her boyfriend.  She also told me about the first time she had a bladder infection (she thought she had an STD - classic) AND she once bragged to me about how she can go a whole week without showering and you can hardly tell! (TRUST ME...you can tell).  On a regular (I would venture to say daily) basis I am forced to avoid sitting near her because her body odor is so strong that it fills my nostrils and makes it impossible for me to breathe.  And today...today she greeted me by saying, "I am going to take my shoes off and air my smelly feet!"  ...Nice to see you too.  That sounds like a great idea...in a classroom...full of students...of course, why not?

In other news, the other day I accidentally ended up attempting to explain gay marriage to a group of grade 9's by posing a hypothetical situation where I claimed a student and I were dating and she got mangled in a terrible car accident and the hospital wouldn't let me visit her during her dying moments because we weren't family...only when I reached this point in the story did I fully realize the intense awkwardness of the moment.

R.I.P. Rosie 2001 - 2012

This afternoon my family said goodbye to Rosie, our German Shepherd who has been with us since I was 13.  She was my first puppy and the first dog who let me dress her up in strange clothes and photograph her (a privilege that will now undoubtedly fall on Nap).  She was a wonderful dog and will be greatly missed.