Miz S

Portraits of the Teacher as a Middle-Aged Woman.

Despite my mournful post the other day, I am okay. Really. There are plenty of bright spots.

Let's take a look at my persona from a first grader's perspective, shall we? Here are some pictures drawn by my first-graders a few weeks ago:

B. indicates her affection for me by placing me in a rainbow setting, but the dark clouds and the raindrops hint at some ambivalence.

This young scholar has placed me in the classroom (note the clock on the wall), and has placed himself on what looks like a small trampoline. He is a rather bouncy fellow, so it makes sense.

I look demented but welcoming in this child's eyes. Also, I love that she gave me brown skin. I feel so accepted!

And here I look jaunty as all get out! I love it when they draw me all jaunty! My other favorite thing about this picture is that it LOOKS like I have imprisoned a child and am laughing and pointing at him. But I think this young artist is merely experimenting with aspect and perspective. The jailbird is sitting at a table, I think, and the bars are the legs of the table.

In this picture I am sloppy drunk and nekkid, but still very cheerful and welcoming. Hmmm.

A diabolical teacher, hatching a cunning plan...

This kid drew me with ROSIE!!!  Also, her rendering of my outfit is spot on, right down to the clunky shoes and the little bag I wear that contains my id, my classroom key, and a couple of other essentials. That's an A+ for little K.D.

Well, there you have it. A selection of this year's teacher portraits. Must run now. After all, it's 5:40am, and it takes me 15 minutes to get to work. If I hurry, I can be there by 6:15am when the doors open. Oh dear God I have a problem I need hellllllp.

At Sea.

Goddamn I am feeling angry and dejected and, UGH, just dazed. Distracted.

It's bedlam in my brain, I tells ya.

Yesterday I became unreasonably angry at 3:25pm, when I had finally made my way back upstairs after dismissal, was finally alone in my classroom, alone for the first time in 7 hours, with hours of work still ahead of me, but at least I was all alone. I sighed, stretched, hiked up my long tunic-y top and pulled my pants up a little bit (someone lost 5 pounds YEAH THAT'S RIGHT, IT WAS ME) and then heard a voice behind me, "Hi, I'm Jack Jerkface, just wanted to give you my business card and see if you wanted to go over your 403B allocations with me."

I made an odd gasp/quiet shriek and then yelled, "JESUS CHRIST YOU SCARED THE CRAP OUT OF ME!"

He chuckled and apologized.

I was curt and abrupt.

He left.

I wanted to follow him and beat him into a whimpering, bloody pulp for daring to venture into my classroom unannounced.

That was an overreaction, right?

I am also feeling unusually thick-headed. I sat in a meeting at work yesterday and heard myself asking a question that seemed to indicate I had not understood the main point. Yep. I was that person. The one who makes you inwardly sigh when she opens her mouth at a meeting. Fortunately it was a small meeting, mostly containing people who care about me. 

I understand that this can probably all be chalked up to stress. The first 6 weeks of school are always insanely difficult. And when you factor in some of the recent events in my family's life, well, goddamn, what do you expect?

I hesitate to even tell you the other piece of news (which many of you already read on Facebook), but I took Rosie to the vet last week and fed her little pieces of hotdog while the vet gave her the lethal injection. She died happily. Then, I walked outside to a spectacular sunset and cried in my car for the whole ride home.

Swear to God, my next post will not be about death. Unless someone else dies.

Untitled.

I have been avoiding the Internet and all things blog-y for a little while.

Everything has changed around here, and I don't know how long it will be before we feel like ourselves again. My funny, fiesty mother-in-law died on September 7 after a brief and devastating illness.

4 weeks before her death we were still at the beach.  She did everything she always does: played charades, fictionary, and Trivial Pursuit, sat on the beach reading, fussed over Edgar Allen Poo (her dog), and even got into the water for a swim.

She had disturbing symptoms toward the end of our vacation and was admitted to the ICU shortly after our return. After a week in the hospital, she was sent home to hospice care.

We were with her when she died at home. She was not in pain. In fact, it was an amazing and peaceful death.

I would like to tell you more about it, but I can't right now.

Several times a day I think of something I want to tell her, and for a brief flash I forget that she is dead. I experience a small surge of pleasure as I plan our phone conversation. And then reality intrudes and I feel deflated and confused.

My 91 year old father in law is beyond devastated.  A widower now after 57 years of marriage, and he says in a bewildered tone, "I just thought I would have more time with her."

The School Year Has Begun.

The classroom is more or less set up. Which is good, because the students arrived on Monday, and administration frowns on making them sit at tables covered with dozens of plastic bins and assorted junk.

I had wanted to take you through what I did every day during that teacher in-service week. I especially wanted to document the idiotic meetings that teachers everywhere are forced to attend, where it is explained that everything is their fault, and if they would just post these "unifying questions" and "essential understandings" and use the "drill-down" procedure to analyze student data, and stop having "low expectations" blah blah blah, then everything would be fine and our data would be all shiny and special.

Whoops. Didn't mean to bitterly rant like that, but goddamn it's ridiculous.

In any case, documenting the set-up of my classroom turned out to take way more energy than I was capable of mustering over the course of the week. Also, I worried that it would sound as if I was whining about how hard it is to be a teacher. Which, of course, is EXACTLY what I am doing.

Anyway, in case you forgot what my room looked like before:

ARGHH! It's hopeless! I might as well quit!

 
SOB! It's so beautiful! The stupid students will ruin it, I just know they will!

Oh Miz S! You are so organized!

I TOLD you they were going to ruin it!  Yes, that's blood.  And yes, I took a picture.

What's behind the purple curtain in the bookcase? Just stuff I don't want them to get into.

ReallyGoodStuff.Com. Those fuckers should give me a discount, as much money as I spend there.

How adorable are my little lunch bag icons? Courtesy of my friend Julie who finds the best clipart. I printed them out on card stock, laminated them, and hot-glued a magnet on the back.

Where we sit for read-alouds, where we sing songs, where we play games. And where I sternly berate them from time to time. Kidding. A little.

One of the 19 reasons that I love my job. (Despite the whining, which I hope you will forgive.)