the nuclear family

We sort of accidentally got a third cat. Not that she's staying here permanently, mind...just that she wandered in the door a week and a half ago and kind of refused to leave. She's the sweetest thing in the world, silky and docile with a sort of bemused Luna Lovegood-ish gaze. But then I've been seeing Luna in everything since viewing the otherwise painfully mediocre Order of the Phoenix.



The Tiny (aka Nathan Scott Phillips, aka Bounce-Bounce) has gotten decidedly less tiny. This week I'm calling him Brown Bread, for his incredible weight and density.



For the most part the Major tries to stay out of their way, but the two of them together are a hoot. You can get a sense of their general dynamic here:




That kid I was talking about last time finally got transferred. Did he stab someone, you ask? Commit armed robbery? No, his final offense, the one egregious enough to warrant explusion, was walking out of his IEP meeting.

There's a lot to get upset about there, but whatever. He's gone.

I'm going to [gritted teeth] Stanford next weekend for a school retreat. As a non-improving PI school we're required to have an outside provider come in and magically solve the problems we're too stupid to solve ourselves - you may remember how much I hated our last Outside Provider. I wasn't alone, and collectively we chased them out, only to have them replaced by Stanford. Now, the Stanford ed school is the home of outspoken Program-hater Linda Darling-Hammond, so they can't be all bad, but so far their whole plan for the school involves spatial redesign, and since our school is already so cramped with additional buildings and "bungalows" (what we would have called "portables" back home) and there's no time or money to rebuild, their entire plan consists of "signage." You know - banners and umbrellas and such. Mostly banners. They were paid $2 million by The District for this plan. Not for banners and umbrellas, even - just for the mere notion of banners and umbrellas.

Anyway, I'm there Thursday through Sunday evening. If you're slumming it in Stanford those days, hit me up.

Overheard at work:

One maintenance man to another, heatedly: And they want us to empty trash, and spot-mop, and de-gum, and clean the sodas off the floors, and work as a team!

A kid (next to the side gate, lately closed to students, forcing them to walk all the way to the front of the school to leave): Let my people go! Let my people go!

mmmm. peppery.

Highlights of my day:

I breathed pepper spray for the first time! And it wasn’t even a fight, just some kids goofing around in the hallway connecting my classroom to the rest of the school (naturally.) I stepped in to head to the restroom and got a lungful. It’s like the first time you’re in an earthquake; despite your lack of prior experience, you immediately know exactly what is going on. It really feels like pepper, if that makes sense, and then your eyes water, and you cough violently, and later you get a headache. Or maybe that’s from the graffiti remover I used this morning – who can really say.

One of the other SLC’s leads is attempting to take a room in our rotation. This is incredibly freaking unacceptable. I am hoping it is resolved before I have to scream and yell about it.

Highlights from ESL 4 translations of Romeo and Juliet:

SAMPSON: No, sir, I do not talk smack at you, sir, but I do talk smack, sir.

ROMEO: Is she a Capulet? Oh dear, my life is a mess.

Do you know the times?

Sometimes you catch yourself thinking thoughts, especially when they are the first ones of the day, that make you reconsider your career choice and/or life path thus far. Thoughts like,

Oh good! We have toilet paper today.

Other times your students write things that are so unintentionally charming and/or hilarious you write them on 3x5 cards and show them to everyone you see that day.

On Romeo’s mental state and motivations:

Romeo is feeling depressed because he is in love with a girl that he will never be able to date or marry because she is a noun.

On asking people if they believe in true love:

I guess that the answer was different depending on which or what age they were. Like little kids think that love is gross. And also that little kids are gross.

Then there are the times when they say things so completely idiotic that you just stare at them, aghast.

After a really rough week with my 9th grade class, during which almost no headway was made in Romeo and Juliet, I gave them a brief talk about why they needed to learn this play: It’s one of the most famous in Western literature; it’s full of evocative, poetic language that will help us with our own writing; it deals with huge themes that help us to examine humanity; and last of all, every ninth grader in the known universe reads this play, and when you go out into the world, you will want to know what other ninth graders assume is base knowledge. My Prettiest Girl, by which I mean the one who has most consciously made the decision to be a Pretty Girl, says in her snottiest, most dismissive tone,

Well, what if we’re already in the tenth grade?

Touché!

Then today, I busted my kids betting on poker after the state test. They were pissed when I took their cards, and I explained (calmly and quietly, I might add) that this was not just my rule, but the school’s, and the government’s, when not of age and in a casino. And this kid says, in his best Gotcha! voice,

But I’m not legal! I don't have papers; I don’t have to follow your rules!

Yeah, buddy. Good luck with that.