perspicacious.org

The cell keeps ringing. When I pick it up it's just this horrible shrill beeping noise. I also get hang ups on my landline 3 or 4 times a week. The caller never says anything, just breathes a little into the phone. It's not creepy, exactly. Well, the fact that they've been calling me 3 or 4 times a week for months is creepy, but the breathing isn't. Whatever. I'm moving in a month. Then they can stalk someone else. Phones are horrible, horrible inventions and I hate them. Screw you, Alexander Graham Bell!

Aight.

Tomorrow is our big end-of-the-year-restructuring-and-shuffling-fat-chance-you-get-to-do-things-the-way-you-want meeting. In efforts to further move our cheese (and boy howdy, does my cheese have the stamina of a triathlete mountain climber) we're being "encouraged" (*cough* *cough*) to change grade levels or disciplines next year. Not me, of course. No doubt tomorrow's meeting will bring interesting developments. I look forward to them because they don't concern me. We also have to turn in a bunch of superfluous year-end paperwork that nobody but the nuns remembers to fill out. We got a nice long list today detailing the order and contents of our staff manual. I spent a good 45 minutes working on it this afternoon. Fantastic use of time, that.

Does it seem like I'm pissed off tonight? I really am not. Well, except for the phone thing, which is really getting old.

I feel…peaceful today. If I were more pessimistic I'd think of this as a prelude of the chaos to come (and no doubt it will), but I'm not thinking like that. Inevitably, I think that the way things are is the way they will always be. I can never quite get past that. On days like today I think it's all right to not be too forward-thinking or realistic.

I'm down to 18 kids these days, and with 2 absent today it was an unbelievably easy 16. Completely different from managing a class of 21. I have 5 extra desks now. The kids could sit somewhere different every day. Tomorrow I'll move them, and I suppose we'll have one extra group of empty desks. It can be the isolation table, if need be.

It's been lovely and warm out, and we had the fans on after lunch. One fan only works on low speed. It reminded me of the ceiling fans in Mexico, which just stirred the hot air around a little. I also had one box fan, which broke a couple of days after I arrived. I didn't know the word for fan, but I do now. Ventilador. El ventilador se rompió. I replaced it and carried the new fan from room to room with me. I kept it on all night, turning it off to the sound of the garbage man ringing his cowbell at 7:00AM. Mexico is a strange place.

I'd hoped to tie all of this together, but I don't think it's going to happen. I peacefully surrender.

rundown:

late, enraptured, conflicted, impatient, lost, disappointment, surprised, relieved

translation:

-I was late this morning, squeaking by just in time to get the copies made for the 50 states final test.
-A brought in her pet boa constrictor, like something out of Pinkerton, to share with the class. Her dad talked for quite a while about the snake but the kids were completely enraptured by it all and listened to everything he said.
-We chose the kids' work for the art show, which is always a little tricky. Some kids have too many good pieces, others too few. I feel conflicted because I want everyone to participate, but I also want the 5th grade section to be full of great work. (Everyone gets one piece in the show, don't worry.)
-I didn't get a break because I attended the art class with the kids and was decidedly impatient with them for the rest of the morning– I also didn't give them a break. (Other than recess, I'm not that mean.)
-The principal pulled me aside at lunch to tell me that another kid was being disenrolled because of the almighty dollar, the 3rd I've lost this year.
-I had to tell C's best friend that C wasn't going to be in our class anymore, and even though he's a pretty easygoing and accepting kid the sadness and disappointment showed on his face for the rest of the day. That broke my heart.
-We wrote a sestina as a class and the kids really enjoyed it, which surprised the hell out of me. They enjoyed the collaboration, I think.
-Now, of course, I'm relieved that the week is over but unsure of what, if anything, I accomplished.

I wish I felt like it was worth the effort to work at explaining myself.

Sometimes in late afternoon when the sky is the most intense and interminable blue and the breeze is warm and soft and teasing my skirt and my hair and I open the car door and roll down the windows to turn my face to the sun and clouds and only then do I realize that's as near to a perfect moment as I'll ever come.

I could tell you all of my secrets, but then what would I have left?

Hmmmm. Nah, I won't say it.

Man alive, is it ever windy today. And cold! The kids were freezing at recess, but I made them stay outside because I am just that mean. And because I had duty and had to stay outside myself. I told them that kids in Fairbanks, Alaska have outside recess until it's minus 20 degrees Fahrenheit, which is true. M pointed out that kids in Fairbanks have big Eskimo coats (her words), which is probably also true.

We did powerpoint presentations in computer class today. Ick. I loathe powerpoint. It's the best way for people to give presentations and not know what they're talking about, (but, by golly, their slides do have pretty backgrounds and clipart). I told the computer teacher I couldn't do the lesson because I don't know how to do powerpoint. (True, but it's because I've resisted learning.) Can you believe I usually teach my own computer classes? What's up with that? My class had a lot of trouble with the lesson, and she was pretty short-tempered with them. That just proves my point that powerpoint is the work of Beelzebub.

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