Almost two years ago I was subbing in a middle school library near Omaha, Nebraska and I thought, "Hmm. This might be a good job move. Hmmmmmmm."

Fast forward to yesterday: me stumbling into the house after a week in Seattle, brain overflowing with information concerning everything it takes to do an online MLIS program. There were icebreakers, lots and lots of software intros (LOTS), notes notes notes, a trip to financial aid and introductions to fellow students. Meeting new people is not my favorite thing. It stresses me out. But I stepped outside my comfort zone and invited people to lunch and asked if I could sit here and tagged along and took photos. There is one other Arizona person and she lives in the Phoenix area, within driving distance, and she is fun and nice and interesting.

I also had a LOT of espresso, which fit in perfectly with the traditional NW fall weather (I was lucky -- there was sun and rain and fog and breeze and it was all lovely).

NOTE: I had lunch in a ramen restaurant and ate my entire bowl of noodles with chopsticks! My hands hurt a little bit afterwards, but still! Yay! (Chopstick dexterity is a Goal for 2010.)

So here I am, gearing up for the day the discussion boards open on my first class. Because I filled out some forms, wrote a couple essays (thank you my editors!), and made certain papers appear in Seattle, Washington, this is happening. It is so great to have a title again: I am a grad student. Not a substitute teacher or an unemployed lazy-ass. That Grad Student-ness comes with a community of other students and university support staff and passwords. Oooh, the passwords -- the access.

INDEED: I want to push at the boundaries of my comfort zone during this program. This is mostly not being so reserved, instead actively making connections, networking (gag). I didn't talk a lot in class (Simmons people can verify this) but maybe the online bulletin board format will be better for me.

Regardless, this also seems kindof weird.

FYI: One of my classes is website design and I foresee a new website or two in the future.

Please wish me luck!

I had my first MLIS experience last week! ---an online meet&greet type of business. It started with a live video feed and a bunch of profs and current students introduced themselves, then a there was a series of casual voice-over presentations by the profs about classes. The last segment gave prospective/future students the chance to message in questions.

It was informative and helpful, but also kindof surreal. I kept thinking, "Welcome to the future!" and "I'm at school!" and I was just sitting in my kitchen, drinking tea and taking notes (old school pencil and paper, yo). I feel so modern.

---

Classroom is empty, keys are turned in, gifts received, goodbyes given. School is over! I am free from the crazy, red Sharpie wielding mother, the office assistant who slammed my door, and my less-than-competent administration. And I have champagne!





Cheers!

Survived all the graduation hoo-ha; I am exhausted. Nothing went terribly wrong--or even mildly wrong. It was fine.

One more week of school with the sixth and seventh graders. Must pack up classroom, must pack up much of house. Must remain calm!

I was prepared for today to be overwhelming. Graduation is next Friday and every day means more preparations that are due. There was a lot due today--names for honors and high honors to be submitted so certificates can be printed, nominations for some super-special award that requires a teacher to write an essay (why is this so? If the student wants the award, the student should write the essay) and then two of my classes had quizzes, both of which I wrote up last night.

But I took things step by step and all was well. There was some assistance by something that arrived in the mail today, but I'll write about that later.

Why does washing the car make me feel good?

Twelve more days with the 8th grade.

Sixteen more days with the 6th and 7th grades.

Not counting weekends.

If it was any longer . . . I'd be forced to put my eyes out with needlesharp pencils. TODAY: A cheater (on a quiz!), two daft candy eating liars and another flare-up of the champion dumbasshole kid. He made a visit to the Ineffectual Vice Principal's office; this means five minutes of naughty-naughty-be-good-now-go-back-to-class! It's the first and ONLY time I've sent anyone to the office this year but I could not bear to have the kid within throwing distance one more moment. The idiot will NOT shut up in class (he constantly makes stupid kindergartner noises and then denies it and mumbles under his breath when I tell him to stop), has serious anger-management problems that result in cruelty to his classmates when he overreacts to something he THINKS he hears, and then he plays the victim and wonders why no one likes him.

Good luck, kid! I see you getting beat up real good in high school.

(I know that the problem is he doesn't get good attention from his classmates, so he acts out to get ANY attention resulting in pissed off teacher, but it's MAY. My patience is almost gone.)

You know, I'm quite happy with how today went. I took note of progress (small steps) and accomplishments instead of only stressing about what's still not done. Progress reports go out tomorrow and all I need to do is print them out at work.

Furthermore:

Hooray, hurrah, I left work in time to take my Yashica-Mat in to the only repair place in town and they fixed it! I took it in last year (after getting a roll of film back that looked like this) but was not brave enough to stick to my guns about what I thought was broken and left with a still-broken camera. (Camera people are intimidating.) But not this time! I will not be put off with vague, accusatory statements about f-stops and light meters! Chock-full of knowledge from my recent class and my natural mechanical tinkering tendencies, I forged ahead and gave my verdict. They listened, poked around, and-hark! found some loose screws (not in my head; in the camera panel) that was preventing the shutter from firing part of the time. A little tightening action, and we are all set! They wouldn't even let me pay, only telling me to have fun shooting with it.

I'm going to load it up with film when I get home and see what happens.

So that's off my To Do list and I have another camera in my arsenal, ready and waiting. And my grades are done, leaving me to leisurely finish my iced mocha and cranberry-orange muffin before heading home to do whatever I damn well please.

Ooh--I just remembered that another Buffy DVD should be lying in wait in my mailbox.

We are doing standardized tests this week and it's done a number on the schedules. Some classes I see too much, and others I don't see enough. At this point in the year, it is difficult to motivate myself. I get home from work and only want to sit and watch DVD after DVD or go to sleep. I spend far too much of my day waiting for school to end, so I can go home, and then I stress because I can't manage to clean up the house or make dinner or any of the innumerable errands and Things That Must Be Done.

And then I write delightful blog entries like this.

Not enough time, not enough energy, no oomph. I could use some oomph.

There is a carton of leftover pad thai waiting for me for lunch. That's something.

To cheer myself, I will listen to some music. Some totally inappropriate for Catholic school music.

... and the iPod is dead. Scratch that.

I can already tell it's going to be one of those days, the sort where my motto is, "What the hell am I doing?"

Two more months of school left. Nine weeks. All of graduation to plan. A book each to start and finish for each grade.

I really miss Chicago.

What They Think They Know about Romeo and Juliet: A Survey Taken BEFORE We Read
by My 8th Grade Class

Juliet says "Far out art thy yonder window breaks."

Hard vocabulary (language)

Juliet is a girl.
Romeo is a guy.
I think it's about love.

They live happily ever after at the end.

Juliet is in a castle ...

The whole play is written in sonnets.

A number of people get killed.

Very romantic.

Some parts are real cheesy (in other words, horrible)

It's super old.

Romeo and Juliet is a love story. Romeo drinks a glass of wine (I think) in which there is poison in. He dies. Juliet finds him and there's nothing in the cup so she kisses him but she doesn't dies so she stabs herself.
umm or the other way around.

I'm really hoping Daylight Savings is the root of my problem today, the reason for my listlessness, impatience, reluctance and avoidance. I did not want to be a teacher today. I just wanted to leave.

Either I'm caring too much, or not enough. I have no idea.

Sixth graders love being online. I teach Language Arts and Social Studies and created a del.icio.us page just for them, to direct them to sites according to what we study. Here are the (teacher-approved)  sites they like best right now:

A couple of months ago, I had a forging incident here at school. A form was sent home, the signature did not match other signatures I had on file, and Little Miss Thing lied to my face THRICE about her mom's signature on a form. It wasn't! I called home, she was talked to, game over.

She did it again! Well, not the lying (I didn't bother to confront her) but the forging. Progress reports went out recently and, for the middle school, students take home one report for each class. Each is to be shown to parents, signed and returned. I noticed that the signatures on two of the reports looked wrong--they were! She chose not to show her mom her grades in math and science because they were low. I guess mom didn't wonder where those two grades were.

I just got off the phone with the mom; she doesn't know what to do.

It is difficult to keep incidents like this from affecting how I deal with this student in the classroom.

At lunch today I introduced three Mexican colleagues to baklava. It
took some convincing, but they all ate and enjoyed it.

Then again, they didn't have seconds ... but another teacher had
thirds, so it evens out.

I had a great discussion of Animal Farm with the 8th grade today; that always lifts my spirits. I know not all of them "get it" or have kept up with the assignments. I know some of them don't care, but enough care that we can talk about it.

And now I just finished a letter to a parent who wrote indignant comments all over her child's progress report. She was wrong on every count, so it was up to me to correct her without letting her know I think she's a ridiculous, misinformed alarmist with no idea of what she's talking about. This is my second run-in with her; her last missive was writ in RED SHARPIE. She uses lots of exclamation points and question marks. She is not a favorite among her child's former (or current) teachers.

At my elbow, I have a cup of peach green tea I bought near Ipswich (at the farm where Kristin and I shared a tractor). For lunch, I have thermos of cold hibiscus tea to accompany the spiced eggplant and peas I made last night (Bruce hates eggplant so I am taking advantage of his absence). So today doesn't suck. Except for Keaton, who has to go to the vet for shots later.

The air conditioning is on but it's still muggy in here. Ah, Texas. I may have to go clothes shopping to prepare for next month's Chicago trip ...

Today's word, boys and girls, is fuck. Fuck fuck fuck fuck. I've said
it countless times; now you try!

It is just one thing after another.

1. Nasty letter from parent about copying paper fiasco yesterday (it
is full of typos; she even misspelled the principal's name).
2. The aide corrected 34 Social Studies tests for me but wrote in the
answers so now I have to white them all out so the students can make
corrections.
3. Last minute high school recommendation forms due NOW -- and one for
a student who copied another person's homework yesterday (not the
nasty letter person); this one brought me chocolates to buy her way
back into my favor.

Do you think I can sneak out, grab my camera and have a shooting day
instead? Would the kids notice?

More importantly, would they tell anyone?

Today's one of those days when I wish my work didn't focus so much around people. You can't have a quiet, leave-me-alone day when 25 kids await instruction, and then 50 minutes later, a new batch enters and clamors for their part.

Today I don't know what I want, I just know I don't want to be here.

I have a pile of seven high school recommendation forms on my desk--these are for my 8th graders going on to private or Catholic schools. The forms were handed to me today with explicit instructions to complete them by tomorrow; they have to be faxed to the schools ASAP.

I hate filling out recommendation forms. Scratch that--the forms aren't bad; it is the recommendation LETTERS I have to write that go with them. It is worse when it is a rush job, such as this. It's also bad since six of them are for the same school, so I have to make the six letters quite different. It is difficult to come up with praise for mediocre students ... especially since some of them have parents who work in the school office here and probably will get an eyeful of what I write before they send it.

I'm stalling.

If you need a short distraction, this video is pretty cool. (via Craft's blog.)

I've developed a bad case of Report Card Hand. Hello callus!

I am at school. It is just me and the newly shiny floors. The classroom looks weird; there are blank spaces on the walls that jump at me but nothing was posted there last term--I suppose this means my decorating is uneven.

It is 12.45 and I am determined not to stay past 6pm. I will finish grading, prep my report cards, recycle old papers and leave with a sense of accomplishment and readiness for tomorrow.

Let's see how this goes.

Okay! 4.45pm and I graded half the projects, completed another class's report card grades, and drove frantically to a stranger's house to reclaim my paycheck which blew off the top of my car where I so carefully placed it so as not to forget to drop it into the mailbox. He opened the envelope and called me (my phone number's on the deposit slip) and thank goodness that is all taken care of. That's not quite how I planned my day.

The lost paycheck adventure made me all jumpy and I still can't calm down; that was two hours ago.

Change of plans: grade rest of projects at home (*sob!*). Finish correcting makeup tests and write up lesson plans for Thursday-Friday. Fill out my class's report cards tomorrow. Augh.