bizzaro world

Hey to all out there who read my little entries (yes yes, all two of you, if I'm lucky). It is me... I am still alive, barely. Tomorrow is the last day before spring break. I think I'm more excited than the students are. I am very much ready for this to be done. I am physically, emotionally, and mentally drained. I have had enough of prom, boy-toy discussions, parental abuse allegations, gang problems, pregnancy, suicide attempts..... the list goes on and on. All of the teenage drama. I'm ready for a break from it.

On the good side, I know that at least one of my students likes me. I was told by this student that I should stay for the rest of the year instead of the teacher. After telling her that it wasn't nice to talk about her other teacher like that, I felt all warm and fuzzy inside. Awww.

I gave a test today to my juniors. My first period of juniors didn't really like it and passes this information along to the next class. The second class of juniors came in and said that they heard my test was really hard. All I did was laugh. They looked at me and told me it wasn't funny. Yes it was. I mean, come on, there were rumors going around about MY test. That's awesome.

Other than that, I have nothing really to report. Yes, in all this time, I have nothing to say. That's yet another problem here - my life is working. From 5am to 10pm, I am working on school stuff. It's actually very sad. Almost done though. Almost done.

Two of my students were attacked Monday after school in the park. One nice, quiet junior and one very polite, sweet freshman were beaten up by a gang of girls running after school in the park right by the school. It's crazy. I felt so bad for them, especially when my freshman student told me before class that she didn't study for the quiz they had yesterday. She felt so bad and kept apologizing for not being ready for the quiz. I kept telling her it was fine; all that mattered was that she was ok. She can always make up a quiz. That's terrible that these kinds of things have to happen.

Then today was horrible during my last class of the day. Utter craziness.

I hand out their quiz.
"A quiz! How can you be having a quiz?"
Um, I don't know...it's only been announced on the board for the last week and I've only announced it five times this week.

I hand out a worksheet to do during class.
"More work! Is that all we do in here? Why do you give us so much work to do?"
Hmmm...what the hell else do you expect to be doing in here? You've never just sat in class doing nothing. It's not hard work either. It's just a worksheet."

I remind them that their project is due on Tuesday.
"Tuesday!! We haven't had time in class to work on it! How can it be due then?"
Um, I don't know...it's only written on your project assignment sheet, and I've said it every day since I handed it out. And let's see, it's homework. Why in the world are you expecting me to give you all this class time to be doing work?

Complaint after complaint....49 minutes of it. Let me just say, I was tired after that class.

I've finished with my first week of....observing. I haven't done any teaching really, other than walking around and helping students diagram sentences and pronounce "monotonous." But, this week, I have to start teaching the freshman class. They're the crazy ones, so lucky me, I get to start with them. They don't stop talking. Not at all. From bell to bell, someone always has something to say, and no, these comments don't have to do with the class. It's random stuff. Should be interesting.

In other news, I have a scratch and a sore mark on my forehead due to a druken stupor last night. And no, not my own druken stupor. Amazingly, it's due to someone else's. My mom went out with her coworkers last night and came home somewhat more than tipsy. I went up to bed, not wanting to deal with her in that state. She came up later anyway, tried to flop onto my bed (with me in it), lost her balance, and fell into bed instead. She must have had her mouth hanging open or something because her tooth hit my forehead, causing this morning's soreness. Terrible. See, this is why I'm not a fan of drunkeness. Stupid people.

It's been a very long week. I'm back in the Chicago area again though and very upset about how fucking cold it is outside. I got lost the other day for about an hour. I was numb from head to toe. I was very willing to just lie down on the sidewalk and wait for authorities to come and scrap me off the pavement, but I decided against it when I saw a huge chunk of ice fall off the building and shatter all over the sidewalk where I was going to collapse. I figured there's no need to be killed by ice.

Anyway, I'm off to move into my apartment today. I think it's a really nice place, but it will be a little cramped with the 5 of us living there. Yes, that's right, 5 people. I'm a little worried about people ALWAYS being there and that I'll come across as the bitch when I yell at them all because I can't stand them anymore.

I've been at my school for student teaching two days now. Despite the fact that I have to get up at 5am to travel down to the school, it's a really nice place. The teachers were very welcoming. I'm a little overwhelmed, and well, terrified, that soon I have to start making plans for the classes. I'm still not really sure what I'm going to do with these kids. I'll be starting with the freshman classes. These are the ones that scare me. They're loud and very active. I hope I survive. I'll let you know in 3 months.

I have learned today that I do not have to adhere to a dress code, exactly, at my school. There is no mandated skirt wearing at this school. Very good news.

I got into an argument the other night with a fellow employee the other not about what are strectch pants and what are jeans. She was wearing jeans (a no-no at work) and was claiming they were stretch pants. I hate stupid people.

Then, in other exciting news, I missed the student teacher dinner last night and didn't let anybody know, at least not the right people. I had told my professor I wouldn't be there, and he in turn did not pass along the information. So I was given a talking to not once, but twice, today when I went to the education department. How dare I not go when they had paid for the dinner and I didn't even let anyone know? I fear that because of this dinner, my name is now on a list somewhere under "No Certificate for You."

I seem to have this capability of getting pink eye at least once a year. I must be starting early this year cause I've got it yet again. The only thing that I hate about this is that I can't wear my contacts. It's a time that I am forced to wear my glasses, an item I abandoned when I was allowed to get contacts at 13. I've ignored my glasses for so long that I haven't gotten new ones since I was in high school. This means that the prescription with my glasses is very, very OLD. My vision gets worse all the time. Since I'm forced into becoming one of the "four-eyes" for a few days, I've decided I really should update my glasses. It's really hard to see out of these things. I couldn't see the board in class today (always the child's case) and things were blurry while I was at work tonight. I have a headache from not being able to see clearly all day and my eyes are very tired. But the kicker in all this is when I was driving this morning. I really should not be allowed to operate heavy machinery while wearing these glasses. While driving to school this morning, I ended up taking both lanes on the road for a while. I couldn't see the white lines in the middle of the road. It was after a minute of this two-lane driving that I realized the road seemed awfully big when it shouldn't be. I'm really surprised I didn't hit anything today.

I'm thinking more and more about this teaching at a private school. These girls are going to be wearing uniforms everyday. I've never had to deal with such an issue and I hate the idea of it anyway. But of course if they start complaining in class about it, I can't agree with them and say it's a waste of money to be creating all these uniforms so that you all look the same and nobody feels "left out." My mom asked me yesterday what I was supposed to wear. All I could say was, "duh, I'm not the student this time. I don't have to wear the uniform." She said that she was only wondering if there was a certain dress code that I was supposed to adhere to. Shit. Never thought of that. They wouldn't make me wear skirts and dresses all the time, would they? I mean, damn it, I just bought new pants specifically so I wouldn't wear my jeans to class. And, it's the Windy City for goodness' sake, who is wearing skirts during this time? I'm not of fan of freezing my ass off. I'd have to do the whole pantyhose thing too, which means that I wouldn't be using the bathroom during the day (do you know how difficult it is to pull those things back up into place in a tiny little stall?). Now I'm back into the whole vanity thing of What am I going to wear instead of what I should be focusing on - What am I going to do there?