So this is Susan, the Susan mentioned here: http://awkward-ann.blogspot.com/2009/09/missing-you.html here: http://awkward-ann.blogspot.com/2009/09/is-this-real-life.html and here: http://awkward-ann.blogspot.com/2010/10/saddle-up-cowboys.html . As you might have picked up from the previous posts, these 3 things are true about me:
1. I am BFF with Ms. M
2. I love the Tide
3. I’m kinda sheltered
That being said, I went to go visit Ms. M this weekend. I did not think I would be able to go to RMS to see her in action because my flight got in at 4:00 PM on Thursday and she had a teacher workday Friday.
Bummer. But in reality, I thought, it was probably for the best. I’d probably embarrass her.
So Thursday morning I arrive to the airport a solid 2 hours before my flight is supposed to leave and stare confusedly at the kiosk for a few minutes with a cell phone in one hand and a piece of paper with every bit of information Expedia gave me in the other. The lady at the counter does not have any customers and offers to check me in. Relieved, I smile gratefully and tell her that would be great. She tells me my first flight is going to be late and would make me miss my connection to Ms. M’s town. So she put me on a direct flight arriving at 1:30 PM.
AMAZING! I call Ms. M and tell her the good news. I happily skip through security and am in a good enough mood to engage a creepy-ish old man in conversation before I finished my coffee. That’s huge.
So I board the plane, make friends with the flight attendant, and nap for about an hour. When I wake up, my new flight attendant friend is sitting next to me, telling me what a blast I’m going to have in this town. I tell her the good news about how I now can go see my friend teach, but I’m not sure how much a taxi will cost to get there.
“Where does your friend teach?” she asks.
“RMS.” I respond cheerfully.
There’s an awkward silence as her eyebrows rise past her hairline.
“R.M.S?!?!?”
“Yyyep!”
“Well, let me tell you what you should do. When you get to the airport, find a policeman and ask him if it’s safe for you to go there alone and if you can stand outside of the school without being harmed. I’m sure that place is locked.”
“Oh….”
I do as told upon arriving to the airport. I beeline to the nearest policeman and tell him I am taking a taxi to RMS and if he thinks that’s ok. After looking me up and down in a concerned way, he sighs, rubs his forehead, and says I should be all right as long as the taxi driver stays until I am inside.
“GREAT! Thanks so much, Mr. Officer! Have a happy St. Patrick’s Day!”
After lugging my 38 lb fuchsia suitcase away from baggage claim, I climb in a taxi and tell him where I want to go. He is unsure at first, but plugs it into his GPS and off we go. When we got off the interstate 10 minutes later, I’m looking around for clues that we are going in the right direction. Is there anything Ms. M said she passed on her way to school? Has she ever talked about any particular landmarks around here? Then I spot a teenager with dreads walking around with a kid. Yep, I can relax; we’re in the right area.
When we pull into the school, I hand the cab driver a wad of cash, he pulls my suitcase out with an exaggerated groan, leaves it in the drive and speeds off. What was it that officer told me?....
I make it inside (it wasn’t locked) and after a brief struggle trying to hold the door open long enough to get my fuchsia suitcase inside, I confidently announce that I’m here to see Ms. M. The lady in the office gives me directions to Ms. M’s room and I break out into a cold sweat thinking about navigating those halls alone. I turn around and try to get my bearings, and just as I do there’s Ms. M walking a group of 8th grade boys in a wonderfully straight line. I bounce out the door, squealing, and wrap my arms around her neck. She then proceeds to introduce me to her boys.
One has a mustache.
They all start talking, and though I can’t understand much, the grins on their faces say enough.
Ms. M speaks on my behalf, “If she knew what ‘zero no’ meant, she would say it right now.”
“What? What’s zero no? What are they saying? What’s going on right now?!!”
“Ms. M, yo friend’s mo COUNTRY dan you.”
“Y'all sistas?
“Ms. M, yo friend wear boots too?”
Finally something I understand! I smile and tell him, yes, of course I own boots; they are very cute and inside my fuchsia suitcase in the office.
We walk the boys to one of their electives, and I meet a few more people along the way. When we get to the room where their next class is, the teacher comes outside, meets me, and starts talking to Ms. M when another student walks by. I have NO IDEA what happened, but the student is down the hall in the doorway, the teacher is beside me, and both are yelling at each other. Words I can’t even begin to understand. I couldn’t even tell if they were upset at each other or just talking loudly because they weren’t near each other. The teacher then turns to Ms. M and talks to her loudly enough for the student down the hall to hear. I still can’t understand what is being said, but Ms. M is standing with her arms sternly crossed, nodding. Hmmm….
The teacher goes into her room and Ms. M catches up with the student down the hall. She tells him he was rude and needs to apologize. That if he doesn’t go into that class, then that will be another 5 days and he just got back from 5 days. (I assume she’s talking about suspension). She reproaches him and implores him to go back to class. Guarantees that if he just apologizes and takes responsibility that the teacher will let him in. He refuses and walks off. The weight of her job is starting to sink in. If this kid continues to get in trouble, he probably won’t be able to finish school. Not graduating high school could be a reality for these students, especially this one I just met. If he doesn’t finish school, will he be able to support a family one day? Will he be able to find a job that pays well enough that he will still be able to spend time with his family to be a good husband and father? Does he know how much Jesus loves him?
Just as I was beginning to tear up, “Ms. M! YALL SISTAS?!”
She rolls her eyes. “No. Just because we’re both white with blonde hair doesn’t mean we’re sisters. We don’t look alike!!”
We really don’t. She’s 2 inches taller than me, skinnier than me, with longer, blonder hair and big blue eyes. My eyes are small and green, my face rounder. Really, no similarities other than our skin tone and hair, though even those are both relative.
We are almost back to her room when we see another teacher peering out from a classroom. We walk up and they start talking. I can’t understand much but know that the teacher is missing a student. Ms. M looks around, as do I, as if I know what the hell is going on. Then we get involved in more drama when another teacher tells a student to pull his pants up. I look in the direction of the commotion.
OMG.
The pants are, like, at his knees! And he’s wearing red boxers!! OMG!! Pull those up! How is he walking!??!?! OMG, I know I am blushing right now! OMG, he sees me blushing! OMG, he’s grinning at me and definitely has the wrong impression!! I don’t know what to do!!
Thank god, Ms. M needs to go to the teacher workroom for something. I spin around and follow her, meet a few more interesting people along the way. Like a guy taller than me with dreads longer than my straight hair. He’s in 8th grade.
As we are on our way back from the teacher workroom, classes change. Ms. M gets a few feet in front of me and does not realize we’ve become separated. I begin to panic, keep my eyes on her at all times because I CANNOT LOSE HER. I somehow manage to stop myself before yelling for her, although that had to have been an act of God. I was FREAKING OUT. The pack of girls separating us turns down another hallway and I sprint to catch up to her.
“You almost lost me!!” I say breathlessly.
She calmly turns and says “Oh, really? Hey meet Mr. E. He teaches some of my boys.”
She obviously does not realize that I was in a life or death situation for a few seconds there. Whatever.
We go outside for post duty, and the culture shock continues. I hear words I’ve never heard spoken at a junior high before, got called Ms. M several times without anyone noticing that no, I am definitely not Ms. M. There are some of the most intriguing fashions of pants, shoes, hair, and shirts. There are guys acting like thugs, guys acting like angels, and guys acting like goofy junior high kids. There are girls all over the thugs, girls I think are straight from heaven, and girls that are awkward adolescents. Ms. M authoritatively keeps them all in line and I stick as close to her as possible. I pray for those kids, for their families and their futures, and I thank God for people like Ms. M whom He gives the strength to go into these schools day after day trying to educate and make a positive impact on these students’ lives. And mine.
