Here I Am. Queen of the May.

Good God. Maybe this picture will motivate me to post again really soon just to get that off the front page.

Work is all-consuming for me right now, hence the lack of posting. I stayed really late on Tuesday just trying to get cleaned up and organized. Part of classroom management is simply housekeeping. Things have to be put away or replenished or reorganized every single day. And if you put these tasks off (Hi! I'm lazy!), they mount up day by day until suddenly you are whimpering and wandering helplessly around the classroom looking for your plan book and your calendar and your post-its and godDAMNit where are those overhead coins that I bought last year and why are there paper airplanes in the writing center?  It's not the Paper Airplane-Making Center. It's the WRITING center! No wire hangers!

By Tuesday my anxiety was monstrous so I stayed until 7pm taking care of all that stuff and I was really glad that I did. Yesterday was easier because my table was cleaned off and I knew where stuff was.  It occurs to me that if I put in just 1 hour of sustained effort after the kids leave every day I could avoid the snowball effect and stay more organized.  It also occurs to me that if I didn't have so many meetings to attend I would have more time to take care of this stuff. I would love to bitch about that some more but meetings are a fact of life and I just need to deal with it.

Every year around this time teachers start worrying about whether or not their students are ready for next year. It's a very maternal sort of anxiety. Did I teach them what they need to know?  Are they ready? Will Erick get a teacher who understands that he is brilliant despite his articulation issues and his difficulties with reading and writing? Will Deon's teacher realize how sensitive he is? Will Estefania steal things from her new teacher and bring them up to my classroom to present them as gifts, the way she did with her kindy teacher at the beginning of this year? Will Julio still be a total poopy-head and sulk horribly when anyone displeases him, which is at least 4 times a day?

All up and down the hall you hear teachers saying things like, "Look what a great job you did. You're ready for 2nd grade!"   

Or, "You're almost in 2nd grade. Shouldn't you know how to walk in line by now?"

My team mates and I are looking forward to next year with a mixture of apprehension and relief. On the one hand, it's our chance to start over and be the perfect teachers that we know we can be. On the other hand, it's a well-known fact that the current crop of kindergartners at our school are a "handful" which is teacher-speak for "psychotic." I will be the team leader (a thankless job, believe me) AND I will have a student teacher (a hideously time-consuming enterprise). Josh is just finding this out from reading my post and I guarantee you he will divorce my ass if I complain EVEN ONCE about having a student teacher next year.

I swear, I love my job so much sometimes. Remind me of that the next time I wail and moan about how horrible it all is.

In reading over this post I think to myself, hmmmm, wow, this is deadly dull stuff. But a couple of you guys emailed me and wanted to know if I were dead or alive so I thought I should get at least something up here. I will try to have a nervous breakdown or drum up some outrage over little Miley's photo shoot (yawn) or maybe get into a fight with a fellow blogger so we'll have SOMETHING TO TALK ABOUT.

In the meantime, I remain your faithful servant.

Comments

[blackbird]

I was just wondering where you were...of course I've been too wrapped up in MY LIFE to email and ask you - but I see now that you are going about business as usual. And that you love your job. I'm going to cut and paste that sentence and save it for you for December.

[Eurolush]

You ARE Queen of the May.

Just look at that flashy smile! Look at those exotic zebra stripes! And that adorable bob!

All Hail the Zebra Queen!

[Laura/DaPFG]

oh lord. i was wondering how in the heck you managed to know EXACTLY how my housekeeping skills or lack thereof are. (that sentence felt weird...)

but then you kicked in with your teaching stuff and i realized you were not, in fact, living in my brain, as i feared momentarily you were.

is it sad i'm jealous of your transparency coins? in like 4th grade i had to do some report in health or something, and i made transparencies for it, and boy did i think i was the ish.

my 8th grade math teacher used to always wear white long-sleeved button down shirts, and they'd ineveitably be covered in Vis-A-Vis ink by the end of the day because he was left-handed and would always get the side of his palm and arm on the ink. i bet his wife loved him.

[Laura/DaPFG]

oh, and i meant to say how much i LOVE that picture. hee!!

[MsCellania]

That worrying you do about your students? It's why I heart you, Mary.

[Liza Lee Miller]

Oh, I hear ya! Oh Lord. Are my kids ready for Middle School? Are the MS teachers going to call me up and say, "Did you teach them ANYTHING???" Sigh. And, state testing helps with all that immensely! Is it REALLY May already? What happened to the year? And, can't it be June yet? :)

[Heidi]

Wait a minute--instead of patting yourself on the back for a job fabulously well-done and looking forward to a relaxing, well-earned summer break--you're already worrying about NEXT YEAR? What are we to DO with you? But you look great in zebra.

[Wende]

Oh, I'm so willing to pick a fight with you. But that would require you actually *READ* my posts, not skim them. *snort*

What I remember of this time of year, when BW was in a school, was that mixed feeling of anxiety and relief---which you paint so beautifully here. I associate that sensation with May, and feel it, even now.

[Pam L]

AS much as I agree with those who say the summer break is too long, that they lose to much, that we should go on a year round schedule with breaks in between tri-mesters, or whatever...Ooo yeah! I am SO ready for the end of the school year. It's selfish for me, I am way way tired of getting up at 5:15AM so I can get the 15 yr old out of bed by 5:30 to leave for the bus by 6:20 each and every weekday morning! WAY tired! And, it's worse if he gets more sleep, explain that? If he gets 7 hours of sleep, he's impossible to wake up, if he gets 5-6 he snaps right up but that isn't good for him. The only way he can get more than 7 is if he gets to bed by 9 and that's darn near impossible with homework, studying, Scouts , martial arts, and the teenage bio-clock. Oh, and I love the zebra shirt. It reminds me of my Choir teacher from HS , Joyce Irwin, who we all thought was pretty cool because she went to New York City to buy her clothes and we were hicks upstate.

[cindy]

wait, wait, wait!
i clearly remember having the conversation that ended with an agreement... NO MORE STUDENT TEACHERS!
what happened? have you seriously lost your mind or are you just a glutton for punishment. OR - wait for it, wait for it - did some lowly administrator ask if you would be willing to have a student teacher? the logical part of your brain was screaming, "NONONONONO!" but the part of your brain that wants to please people said, "yeah, sure. i'll happily take on an unreasonably high work load for a measly stipend and then grumble under my breath about how you suckered my into this."
that's it, isn't it?
ugh! this is me throwing my hands in the air. i give up!
just kidding, i still love you. everyone loves you.
sucker

[bonnie]

No fights needed: RAEHAN HAD A BABY BOY!!!

My younger daughters (9 and 15) delivered May baskets this morning to our elderly neighbors. We're weirdly old-fashioned that way.

You are the Queen of the May and every other month, Miz S! Miss you! xoxo

[Margaret]

Teaching is all-consuming this time of year. There are days that I just come home and stare at the wall for an hour or so before I can even get moving. The meetings, the senior crap, the stress are all wearing me OUT. Or am I just old? You look so happy in that photo--are you driving the new car?

[Vanessa]

You don't look the least bit lesbianish driving the new car! And I love the top!

Hang in there; you're about to have a summer break and your students will do fine in the 2nd grade. You're a great teacher. I can tell by how much you care about all of your students. And you're kinda smart, you know!

[Laura/DaPFG]

SO! scrolling back down to see this picture and caption (LOVE!!), i noticed that the mouse-overs are full of funniness..it's like a whole other journal i've been missing out on!! :P but this mouse-over is my favoritest (put THAT in your teacher's pipe).