why, yes I am

still alive. Thanks for asking. It's been a rough couple, though.

I was doing OK and not feeling the burnout much, especially considering that I've been working straight through since August, and I was handling all the X-factors pretty well up to and including last week's theft of wallet/keys/checkbook, thankfully not by my students, but rather by identified students who we cannot OT or even suspend. Then I took Friday morning off to go get a new ID from the DMV - my last one having been obtained just this past October, mind - and I got the world's shittiest sub and my kids went ape. I got there and my first two periods had done no work, despite the assignment being on the board, and in third period the sub hadn't read the note on my desk asking me to pass out the work contained in a folder directly underneath said sub note, but instead had turned the note over and written "Ain't yall foolish" upwards of a dozen times all across the back, presumably while my students climbed up on top of the furniture to tape my desk numbers to the clock, the posters, other students' work, etc. It was more the kids than the sub that pushed me over; it was their taking advantage of my shitty situation to act like complete morons. That was six days ago and I've more or less been a ghost in the classroom ever since.

That isn't to say I've been sitting in the back letting things go to shit. It's been ups and downs, really, but I am now consciously counting down the days until the break. Yesterday was a good day; my next-door neighbor/ally and Rachel, my upstairs neighbor/road dog were both out, and the kids went berzerk, and for the first time I felt competent enough to run my class well, keep an eye on next door, create work for Rachel's class, and convince her sub not to leave after dealing with first and second period - my little angels from last semester. Sixth period I had a sublime moment, in which I was actually the teacher I wanted to be, which rarely if ever happens. My school holds soccer games during 5th and 6th, which means the players miss a lot of class and everyone else ditches to go out to the field. About a week ago some of my students, whom I have for both periods, ditched during passing period and went out to the game; their next day's lesson on vivid adjectives included rewriting sentences like "I was surprised at how empty my class was yesterday" and "I was upset when I saw how many students ditched." We learn a new non-High Point word every day; that day it was "livid." Anyway, yesterday we were wrapping up a writing project and my kids were being so great that I decided we'd go to the game for the end of the day, but before I could announce this, two of my boys ditched and went by themselves.

Here comes the sublime part. I took the class out to the bleachers, then searched until I found my two charming boys sitting with a bunch of their too-cool friends. I walked up, sat right down in the middle of them, and said, "Hey, guys. I'm going to give you today's new word: irony." My boys were petrified, but the too-cool friends were rapt. "What does that mean, miss?" "Well, irony is kind of when the opposite of what you'd expect happens, and it's usually kind of funny. The best way to learn it is by seeing it. For example: How ironic that these two young men decided to ditch my class today - on the very day I took the class out to see the game anyway." My boys are squirming at this point, and there is a long silence and a lot of averted eyes. I can't help it and I break out into a smile, and then their friends put it all together and they just about die laughing. "She's your teacher? She brought the class anyway?!?" And then we all have a huge, big laugh at their expense and I give everyone some pointers for identifying irony on the upcoming PSAT and CAHSEE. Then my boys swear that they will be my model students forever until they die, and we shake on it, and we watch the rest of the game together. The sun is shining, and there's a light breeze. It is glorious.

Today was more of a "down" day, or at least an all-around day. I was feeling fine until lunch because my senior class has been turned into a writing seminar and for the first time ever it's really functioning and the kids are working dilligently, which tells me they see some value in what we're doing. Then at the end of the day, Rachel sent down my old problem child because he couldn't hang in her class, and he got up to his old tricks, which revolve around figuring out very quickly what will bother or distract you and then doing it with increasing urgency until you physically want to punch him in the face. He feeds off this energy and only gets worse from that point, gleefully bounding around the room throwing things into other students' faces and more or less demanding that you punish him. We think he is seriously emotionally disturbed. Eventually we had to phone the deans to come get him, and not 5 minutes after they had left, two other boys in Rachel's class got into a full-on fistfight. She is like "What must the deans think of me?" and then we are both like "Why is happy hour only on Fridays?"

This would all be much easier to deal with were my courses not conspiring to bury me up to my neck in work and leave me for dead; I've got an assignment to do by day's end tomorrow that is simply not happening, and another by Saturday morning that's even further from coming into existence. I'm just too exhausted to teach classes and take classes at 100%; it's almost unfortunate that my classes are so good this semester. One is my second term of English methods, and the other is "Social Foundations," more or less my course on radical activism and why if you're not getting written up, you're doing something wrong. It's good to be reminded of this; it's easy to sign on as a social justice educator and then forget everything at the end of the day that isn't keeping your students a) in class and b) from punching each other in the face.