Let's Try This Again

My last post (recently deleted though it is) was about how I'd had it with the school year. That was on October 6. Tomorrow I'll be taking a Mental Health Day before I really do carry through on my threat and throw a child out the window. Of course if I really had my way, I'd throw a child out the window after decapitating them and putting their head on a stake. While I jest, and really do love my kids deep down, the thought of getting them to behave by using some Henry VIII style disipline does bring a smile to my lips.

I've decided that I'm going to take tomorrow off to be able to breathe and search for what I want to do.

I can't help but wonder if I keep praying the wrong prayer about becoming a good teacher, but rather that I'm praying that I just find a better fit.

Gratitude Journal

Apparently I've typed this before, because when I typed this title in, the wonderful Predictive Text Fairy finished it up for me. I was reading another blog today (authored by another teacher for DISD) and said author commented that his blog this year has been nothing but rants. I feel like this has been the general trend for teachers this year. NCLB+poverty children= a group of kids who have never been taught that learning is important and that the American Dream is hard work, and that only the most nimble beasts (mentally nimble that is) survive the jungle.

Back when I was a kid, I fantasized being the Anne Frank of the Y-Generation, you know, minus, Nazis and Jews and fearing for my life in an Amsterdam attic, oh and minus a vagina. I tried to write in my journal constantly. All the time hoping that there would be something exciting, original or noteworthy that people would want to read about 50 years later. I never kept up with it. The Digital Age has now amplified this and given a real-time aspect to what my narcissism.

To the point. Back then I watched this one Oprah Show. She had been saying how she was keeping a gratitude journal and how this then turned up the volume on her positive outlook on life. She said to start with three things, the more practice you get the more you become grateful for. We'll give this a try again every so often.

1. I am so grateful for Chaz. Despite the terrible flutter of insecurity that just coursed through my body at the mere mention of this need for another person, I cannot go back or turn around. I can't even imagine not having him there. And, while I didn't get smacked around by any one of my boyfriends (unlike the two dreadful, hypothetical lesbian crack whores I passed on my run today) I did get a little mentally smacked around. My need for perfection in fact has made me a veritable 16 year old girl with low self esteem who picks out shitty boyfriends to continue to make them feel inferior.

2. I am so glad to have a job and feel like I actually know how to do it finally!

3. I am glad we have our pups! Sure they're like speed addicts and they need lots of attention but they give you great stories, and it's really fun to watch them play and run around and act like puppies.

Spinning

It's amazing that the first few weeks back to work have turned me into the alpha-male. This is the first night that I've gotten to slow down. No work, no cooking, no chores, no more I have to get this done right now or the world will fall apart. Maybe, just maybe, if I cross my fingers and close my eyes, and click my heels three times, I can get away with it.

To say I don't handle stress well, is sometimes and in some situations an understatement. I don't handle not being perfect (or not seeming perfect and put-together) well. I get short and mean and I'm downright just out for blood. I feel like that's how I've been at home these past few weeks. Tonight, when we're in bed even though it's 8:30 I know I'm so blessed and lucky to have someone and the puppies to come home too. Nice steak dinner, walk and now some reading and t.v., and there is contentment. It's terrible that I've been taking that for granted, that I feel that if I don't stop at some point, I'll just keep on going, full steam, bull-in-a-china-shop, and lose this amazing and wonderful gift.

We're Entering Week Four

I don't like blogging about work. It's boring as hell. I also hate focusing on what's wrong at school, that is, inevitably, what happens. This year I'm seeing my kids, and some of their parents, and how quickly so many immigrants, illegal or not, adapt to the legal system in our country.

I sent a note home with one of my kids yesterday that said he was talking and then rolled his eyes when I corrected him. Frankly I don't remember if he did or not, and I wasn't really mad, it's just the rules. And, because the educational system has become so hyper-legal, it serves as easy documentation. In the past I've just become infuriated and then when I yell or have the kids call or try to write a referral to the office, they have all this damning evidence that I'm a horrible person. Did I mention that I'm usually reducing them to tears in front of the entire class? Not that tears is my goal, kids to day are just pussies. That's right, I said it. But we'll get to that in a bit. So this mother shows up with her son in my class and her son who's older to interpret. Remember that her son (in my class) is in the bilingual program, that would make me...wait for it... bilingual. Since we're in Texas you can guess, speculate or imagine that I'm not a German bilingual teacher. The better part of all of that though, is that most Mexicans (or Hispanics) expect a bolillo like me to speak Spanish well and with a trace accent. This can either be really disarming or intimidating.

We talked and she was very nice but wasn't going to sign the notification because she disagreed and her son said her didn't roll her eyes. Damn! I forgot to write it down in my notebook! And school was starting! Talk about hit and run. So now already caught a little off-guard, when she wanted a copy I didn't know exactly what to do. SO I wrote on the paper that we had conference and then she could keep it. She still wouldn't sign it. That's cool though. When I have to write her little hoodlum up, I still wrote that I talked to her, so my boss will be more likely to have my back.

The question is, where the hell do folks who can hardly speak English find out about signing documents and admitting to responsibility or not admitting to anything? While we're on that vein why does our society provide more protections for illegal immigrants to begin with? As a teacher I understand not deporting kids from school and providing Title I funds to feed the children. There is no oversight. There are no consequences and it enables an atmosphere of entitlement with no recourse. Gimme mentality will lead Texas and then the United States, to have an under-educated, non-taxpaying, workforce. Lower wages, higher welfare and in the end the burden for many upon so few. We may very well return to a United States that looks something like the US during the Industrial Revolution. There won't be any Carnegies or Rockefeller's, they didn't have income taxes or Social Security or Medicaid and Medicare. But we're protecting the poor, the tired the huddled masses, so it's all good.

Being Teacher of the Year Sucks

The first week of school, one of my cousins posted a "God Bless Teachers!" for all the world to see on her Facebook. At the very least if, it wasn't the world, it was all of her friends. As the new school year begins I wonder how many parents express this identical sentiment.

For me, it was touching, in the sense that, while I didn't dread the school year or have my stomach knot up or try to drop ten pounds by not eating, I am down-right tired. This year, I'm actually hopeful. It's not that brand-spanking new teacher, JFK, Peace Corps, I-can-be-the-white Jaime Escalante- kind of hope. No, what I'm carrying is the third year teacher, I didn't royally fuck-up last year kind of hope. I may not reach them all but I can reach one or two. The one thing I didn't want to do this year was lose my patience. My kids get so much yelling and scolding at home, that I want them to really feel like they have a haven and then I can get them to calm down long enough to learn something. The beginning of the year always motivates me. I get up early, stay at school late, walk around the room and do all those things that they say good teachers do. This usually gets robbed by my domineering principal, kids without any type of concern and parents who thing that my job is to corral their rug rats for 8 hours. This is while they sit at home and take care of the other 4 under the age of 10 and if they don't have a job, they're married to some waste-of-life Mexican who thinks that if they un-thether their women somebody else will stick something in 'em. Ergo- welfare, free lunch, the cycle goes on.

That doesn't mean that all Mexicans are lazy or that some folks don't need welfare just to get a leg up and then move on, but what I am saying is that typically this upbringing engenders a kind of hand-out mentality. Why should my child learn to speak and read and write, in whatever language if there is always some government program that will give food to your kids.

So far this year, I have the best class yet. I don't know if this is due to me feeling comfortable in my own skin behind the overhead or if the fact that the kids have been in a more stable Bilingual program has anything to do with it. I do hope with all my heart that I can keep going, no matter how tired I may be or how much I feel that the kids aren't wanting to learn that I can be that haven. Right now, though after a weekend of grading papers and lesson plans and vocabulary lists, I'm just plain tired.

Lost At Sea.

So apparently one of the big attractions in Puerto Rico is the bio luminescent bay. There are two such bays in Puerto Rico. The reason they glow is that plankton (whale food) absorbs sunlight all day. By dusk their glowing like folks who work at Chernobyl. Sounds super romantic doesn't it? A nice kayak at sunset only to then you can swim in glowing water. Chaz had done this before and I really wanted to, a.) It sounds really cool, b.) Chaz likes outdoor stuff like that. In fact every time I mention going camping (weekend) Chaz starts telling this story about how he spent 10 days in the Tennessee wilderness not showering. Gross! But I really want to like outdoorsy stuff because I like being outside and then I'm afraid he'll go and find someone more rugged to hang out with. c.) This little cruise sounded totally romantic. I like being romantic, and again I think this is one of those things that Chaz is really terrific at and me not so much. For him it's nothing to take me to a nice dinner or have a really nice surprise planned. Me, on the other hand, I'm romantic when I think about it and cook hims something nice for dinner. d.) Since I work out I didn't think kayaking would be difficult.

The road to hell is paved with good intentions. Dusk really meant pitch-black-night. We then wade out into the bay on a bed of sea weed. Not only did it smell like all of northern Puerto Rico had flushed their toilet here, but I was also walking on what felt like hair and had these biting bugs biting my flip-flopped feet. On a side note I found out the next day that Puerto Rico has beach lice. Why did no one tell me to bring any OFF!?

"Be sure you don't lean too far because the boat will tip!" Gee thanks for that awesome advice babe! So there we are in the middle of Toilet Bay, rowing like hell because the tour guide said something like "The last one there is a rotten egg." I have no idea whose bright eph-ing idea it was to give 10 tourists who've never rowed a boat before paddles and told them in so-many-words to get to end as. fast. as. they. can.

Oh, and instead of being in the boat with those that have never before set out upon the high seas, the tour guides are interspersed throughout the group. After we set off on the bay we almost hit a sting ray, and then go down the darkest tunnel I have ever seen in my life.

Even more awesome, the bio bay is at the end of a tunnel of mangrove trees that have grown to create a tunnel. Kind of makes you feel like Dorothy lost in the forest. In any case, aside from being natural water filters (mangroves are necessary to create bio luminescent bays) thesewonderful (wonduhful) trees are natural mosquito nests. It doesn't matter if it's winter, I'm a furnace and now matter what mosquitoes are going to think I'm prime pickins. I'm not sure if it's retribution for a century of pseudo-colonization, or that these guys just thought it would be funny to have a gaggle of American tourists who've never rowed a boat before run into big gnarled trees, but apparently the best place to see the lil' glowers is as close to the mangroves as humanly possible.

I'd like to say that I acted like an adult on this trip. But I didn't. There was this little girl that was in a boat with her dad, and she was ter-ri-fied. I felt her pain. Here I was in the middle of the dark ocean, with bits of glowing crap and sting rays. I was scared shit less.

The more she screamed the more I wanted to hit her off the boat with my paddle. Then I remembered that I was an adult. Well not really...

The thing is Chaz kept trying to be helpful and on top of being way out of my comfort zone I was also really embarrassed that I wasn't just like McGyver. So in the end I'm yelling at Chaz that I'm never fucking doing anything like this again damn it.

After about an hour we rowed back (that was way more fun!) and I have decided while seeing glowing plankton is cool, this wasn't worth the effort, the mosquito bites or getting back to the hotel so late that we didn't get to eat. Next time they'd better row me down that shit like Cleopatra getting rowed down the Nile.

I'm Back!

Sorry for the long absence but I was just a little down in the mouth about what to write. I have so very little to write about with summer vacation, until that is Chaz and I actually took a vacation. This sounds really exciting, doesn't it? Our first real vacation for more than a few days all by ourselves? Aww how romantic (feel free to vomit now)! Both of us really were so excited that we didn't sleep the night before. This is totally awesome when you have a 5:30 am flight and have to be there almost 2 hrs early. So basically we set off with no sleep on a day long-ish flight. This wasn't a sign was it?

I have to tell you that I really love to "travel" you know; exotic places, good food, new experiences. I dreamt about being a CIA agent just to travel around the world (and carry a fire arm).

Really though, I'm not a good traveler. I hate flying. I hate everything about it. I hate airports and the Homeland Security and having to take off my shoes and belt and basically go through a strip search just to get on a plane. I hate stewardesses. This must be because I normally fly Delta. Not only do they hire no good looking queers that I can flirt with to get hooked up on the plane, but they must pick from the pool of reformed whores at flight attendant school. All cheap perfume and caked-on make-up. Not to mention that these women are so surely and small-thinking that I can't imagine any of these women would have any other options beside airline travel or pointing their heels to Jesus and thinking of handbags. I also hate crowded spaces, the general (non-brain-functioning) population at large, undisciplined children, everything that makes a plane ride fun.

Plane rides also turn me into a prayer. I mean I pray on a pretty regular basis. They're usually they prayers like, "Dear God, thanks for a good day", "Dear God, thanks for a great time tonight", however on an airplane, when I'm afraid we'll crash and die, and no one will ever be able to find anything of mine except my left pinkie or other such appendage these prayers usually go something like this: "Dear Ever-loving most merciful God; please don't let us crash and die because who will take care of the dog." I don't just pray this once I start chanting it like Bloody Mary Tudor chanting a novena. I'm not Catholic or else I probably would pray a novena on a flight. God forbid there be turbulence because then I just start confessing whatever sin I think God might kill me for by crashing the plane.

OK, OK, I jest about the God killing me part, a little. The flight to PR was surprisingly uneventful. Now I'm not going to say that I am the sharpest at 5:30 a.m. after 2 hrs of sleep. For most of you who read this regularly, we all know I'm not patient and that on no sleep I can be the biggest prick you'll ever meet.

We boarded the plane and weren't sitting together. At this point I didn't mind this and I have no idea why Chaz did. So I go back to my seat and find it occupied by an older couple. Turns out they're illiterate hillbillies and can't decipher the drawings on the plan showing you where to sit, in case you are in fact, illiterate. So after reading their ticket three times and still not hearing me practically yell at them that they are a row up from where they should be, the other gentleman who was displaced from his seat decides to sit in the ones that should belong to Ma and Pa Dumb Ass. Crisis averted I close my eyes, until this giant fool (that's exactly what he was) who lived up to every stereotype of a militant Black Man decides that I'm personally responsible for taking his seat.

Now don't get me wrong, I understand why he was upset. He wanted the seat he paid for. But now we had to go through yet another fun game of trying ever so politely (I did little of the talking at this point) of trying to tell Those Who Had Apparently Never Flown Before EVER that they were in the wrong seat. By this point I didn't see why one of us (not really me since I was sitting down) didn't just take empty seat number two behind us. Did I mention that the enraged gentleman standing over me was under the impression that I had made the mistake. I don't know why he thought this since he'd just heard the Old Ones misread their ticket.

Then I did it, "Well I don't mind moving since we're all gonna make a big deal out of it." I didn't feel it necessary to add on even though these dumb assholes are in my seat, since we'd already done all that not minutes before. But then I'm giving the general public too much credit for brain function. "I'm not making a big deal but I could!!!" Says the gentleman standing over me who apparently is now looking at me like I'm not only a seat stealer, but also a racist. I guess that at just shy of 6 a.m. everyone is living up to their racial stereotypes.

I was too tired to argue and really didn't feel like getting kicked off the plane, before vacation started, just because I school some giant black man on the intricacies of hand-to-hand combat with a tiny, scrappy man who is more afraid of dying in a fight than having to fight one. "I'd be happy to sit in that other seat if you'd like," it dripped sarcastically out of my mouth.

And for one of the few times I was the bigger person and sat in the seat and moved and tried not to hit this asshole in his head as the plane took off. I laid back, closed my eyes and heard, "Why don't you let me have the tickets so that we make sure we're in the right seats on the connecting flight." Gee thanks lady, now that I've almost gotten my ass kicked this is the time you decide to stand up to your husband who should obviously be a candidate for those Alzheimer's commercials on t.v. Just peachy.