Hell Has Frozen Over

It's true! So I finally asked my colleague/master teacher for a letter of recommendation today and she happily agreed to write one. I *hate* asking for those kinds of things. Now with all the strife I've had with my principal you'd think I wouldn't dare ask her for one. But I did. I just found some balls, strapped 'em on and went in her office. And guess what? The woman is Sybil. She acted nice as pie, congratulating me on 'making it' to June, blah blah blah. She happily agreed to write me a letter too. Again, I heard the theme from The Twilight Zone. I thought, either I imagined everything or she is nuttier than a fruitcake. I was totally prepared to tell her I didn't expect her to write I was a great fifth grade teacher, but that I AM a good teacher - but she was fine and dandy with it all. Maybe she's back on her medication? Hell if I know.

Does it matter? I am so freaking close people! Eight more school days! I also received my portfolio notice back in the mail; my portfolio, according to the County, is complete and I have met all the bullshit standards they wanted from me. Praise GOD!

The best news of all: I went to the Dr. today and finally got my stitches on my toe out! Dang, I've never gotten stitches removed before. Anyway, the dr. said "The cyst hasn't grown back - it looks great." And I'm sitting there going "Wait a minute, it's been about 2 weeks since the surgery - they can grow back THAT fast?" He said yep. Unreal. Why can't GOOD things grow fast on the human body? Like a stack of $100 bills coming out of your head or something. Keeeee-rist.

So good news, good news. Then I come home and that psycho mother I wrote about in my last blog blasted me with an email because her daughter can't keep any homework straight and somehow this is all my fault. Her daughter got a bad grade on a test. Boo hoo. She didn't know when it was due. Funny, the other 3o kids knew. I apparently still had the balls strapped on, because I finally wrote her back and told her (nicely) that her daughter, yep, HER DAUGHTER needed to be the one to tell me she didn't understand the homework...he daughter needed to come up to me and TALK TO ME IN CLASS LIKE SHE IS 11 YEARS OLD AND NOT AN INFANT. Can you imagine your MOTHER speaking FOR YOU all the time? I actually wrote to her something about how it was only going to be harder next year when she has 6 different teachers. What's the mother going to do, email 6 different middle school teachers? I can hear those teachers laughing their collective assess off now.

I am so glad to be leaving elementary school. I can't stand the coddling of children today. Tomorrow we are having a pizza party at lunch. Woohoo. Doesn't get better than that. Coddle, coddle. On the plus side, I am LOVING teaching English literature; today our conversation somehow went straight to the law and we veered off into a whole different arena of thought. Yet I thought "Wonderful. Some kid is going to go home and tell his parents he has to be given his Miranda rights, he has the right to due process/ a speedy trial and if he kills someone and is acquitted, he can't ever be tried again because of double jeopardy." I just love talking about all this shit because the kids don't know any of it - and I will say it's really neat to see their faces light up when they hear new concepts and ideas - ha - like double jeopardy.

My friend S, has begun a wonderful new relationship and it's really got me thinking and honestly, I am envious. I am sooooooooooo happy for her - honestly, she SO deserves this joy and happiness and giddiness, but I am greedy and I want some too! I want to feel like she is feeling now; I want to just be delirious for a little while, haha. I am committed to attempting to make that happen this summer. OK, well I am committed to at least having a date, how's that?
I'm trying to stay somewhat realistic.

8 more school days. I am prepared for the crash and burn, but I'm also prepared for sleeping in, sleeping in, sleeping in. I will say, having vacations IS an awesome part of teaching.

Surreal

Wow. It's June. I can hardly believe it. In a way, the last six months have flown by. And yet so many days were so agonizing for me at my job; so many tears and feelings of total disenchantment, disillusionment and depression. Now June is here - I've almost made it to the finish line. I feel as if in some strange way, I'm graduating too. Graduating from a nightmare work environment where no matter what I did, I just simply did NOT fit in. Graduating from the hardest year of my life, work-wise.

My boss has barely spoken to me in the six weeks since I wrote her a note explaining that yes, I had student taught (after she had the fucking gall to ask me if I'd ever student taught - in April no less!), and included with the note my four spectacular letters of recommendation from my student teaching supervisors and about 20 glowing emails from parents of my kids. Yeah, so it was kind of a "Fuck you" to her - but she deserved it for asking me such a goddamned insulting question.

I can't wait to get away from that arrogant bitch who thinks because she taught for FOUR years in fifth grade she's some expert in education. If you count all the years I taught college, student taught and this year, I've taught 8 fucking years - twice the amount she's taught. God I don't even want to think about her; sadly she's going to be in my face because of all the activities going on with the fifth graders. They're going to a camp for the day on June 16th for their 5th grade party, and then on the 17th we're having class parties and then on June 18th, they are having a culmination - not to be confused with a graduation mind you. The district won't allow the fifth graders to have a graduation because they think it infringes on the graduations of the 8th graders and the high school kids. I can kind of see that. I've seen pre-schoolers in caps and gowns. It does get kind of nuts with almost every grade having a graduation!

As we wind down I have SO MUCH TO DO at work. I have a lot of paperwork to do for all my kids in their cum files - their academic files which have to be transferred over to the middle school. And speaking of...last Wednesday we took them to their new middle school. Luckily, our school is just across and up the street from the middle school so we walked. This was only a day after I got the bandages off my foot and my toe was free - well as free as it can be in a band-aid and a sock. Yes, I have to wear a SOCK with my sandal until this Thursday when I get the stitches out. The doctor doesn't want any dirt infecting my toe. I see his point - but still, I felt a tad bit weird wearing one sock with my sandals. Anyway, so I walked the kids to the middle school. They were actually really good. I think they were scared, haha. They are getting nervous. These are the absolute most catered-to children in the world. Remember they live in a totally protected womb-like existence with helicopter parents and professional mommies hovering over them attending to their every whim and need. As life goes on, they're going to encounter some things mommy and daddy won't be there to fix - or can't fix.

One mother constantly emails me asking me about the homework and classwork for her daughter; her daughter should be able to ask me about this in class. Hello lady! Stop crippling your child. Middle school is going to smack her upside the head, hard. Naturally she's an only child. Now my dad was an only child and my best friend is an only child. My best friend is one of the most independent people I know - so her parents did NOT cripple her and overprotect her. But a LOT of these parents have only one child and the culture has changed - especially in this um, city, where I work. These only children are treated like highly expensive and rare crystal that might crack or break at any minute. I've spent the entire year trying to make these kids more independent and tough.

Anyway, the visit to middle school was fun. Reminded me of my visit to what we then called junior high. I am naturally having a LOT of mixed feelings about the end of this job. Relief that I will no longer be in a place where I so do not fit in. Relief that I do not have to be surrounded by teachers who admit they don't read, don't pay a whit of attention to current events and are intellectual ciphers. Relief I will not have to be around the fucking bitch who essentially fired me in January; I'm convinced now she wanted me to quit back then. She made a gamble and it didn't pay off. She had NO fucking idea how stubborn and persistent I would be about finishing out this job. Relief I will not have to walk around a workplace where I wonder what everyone really thinks of me. Talk about being the black sheep somewhere.

I do feel sadness at leaving some of my kids. I have bonded with some of them a great deal and I know I will cry on the last day; I've already warned them. They know I'm an emotional powder keg, haha. I will miss them. I will wonder how they're doing in middle school. Life will go on but we've been together for 35 hours a a week for 9 months.

I'm scared - I'll be out of work - especially NOW - in this horrifyingly frightening economy with gas and food prices soaring. I'm really scared. I'm also at a point in my life where I finally feel I'm being faced with some big decisions. I've been wanting to leave California forever it seems. Well, maybe I don't want to leave it per se - but hell, I can't live here anymore. It's too damned crowded, it's too third world (sorry but I can't take it anymore - I go into L.A. and NO ONE SPEAKS ENGLISH!), it's too hellish...there's too much traffic, too much smog, and the prices are sky high. Even with falling housing prices, the prices for real estate here are insane. I've thought about moving to Phoenix where my cousin lives (and a good friend lives there too) and I think about moving down to Atlanta where my brother and niece live. I really, really, really want to be near my niece. I want to watch her grow up. I want to know her and I want her to know me. Atlanta wouldn't be my first choice if I had my druthers (haha, love that word) but I have to admit I like the city a LOT more now than I did when I first visited it in August fo 2002.

I believe my words then were "Sherman needs to come through here and just burn it all down again." There's actually a lot of great stuff there; the city is really sread out like L.A. though and it's not the prettiest city in the world. It's got fabulous food, great dining, hotels, shopping, and actually has some culture believe it or not. Museums, the largest aquarium in the world, botanical gardens, you name it.

Anyway, I am going to fly to Atlanta in mid to late July to spend some time visiting with my niece - and oh yeah, her parents. I can't wait to hold her. God, it must be biology because normally I have NO INTEREST in babies at all. I see a baby, I see a puppy, I want the puppy. I see my niece, I go nuts. I think I'll make a visit to the Atlanta Board of Education or whatever and see what kind of job I could get with my credential. It's all just thinking now. Nothing is set in stone. I may end up here, or in Arizona or in Iceland. I don't know. I also need to get my health together once and for all - lose this weight and I want to start dating again. Listening to S, I can only imagine what it's like to actually LIKE someone - to have someone LIKE YOU...oy, it's just been too long.

All I know is my life is going to change drastically come June 18th, the last day of school. I have money from the PFC (parent faculty council) and I wanted to do something for the kids for their non-graduation so I bought wooden frames and we're going to paint and decorate them; I want them to put the name of the school on it and the year 2008 - and their names if they want to. I bought a massive amount of cute stickers and glitter and stuff they can decorate their frames with. I have a TON of pictures of the kids I've taken over the year so once they're done they can choose a picture to remember their fifth grade year.

In my heart of hearts, I know I did the right thing this year. I know I wasn't the most perfect teacher. I made a thousand mistakes. But I truly cared about these kids - as spoiled as they are - and I know the kids know this. I stayed at this job for 2 reasons: one, I didn't want to quit my first contracted teaching job - so yeah, I did it for me. But the second reason is my kids. Fuck my principal, fuck my fellow teachers, fuck everyone else. These kids LEARNED from me this year. We spent many days having amazing conversations - out of the box and out of the book thinking went on in my class. I am currently having a BLAST reading and teaching The Witch of Blackbird Pond with my kids. At a meeting we had last week I met the parent of one of my English lit kids (this kid is not in my normal class) and she told me how much her son loved my class and how much he loved reading the book and he didn't even like reading; shit I wish my principal could've heard THAT.

I've learned I love teaching literature. I'm really giving the kids a lot of homework and they don't like it - but hey, they came into the class with the attitude that they were the smartest of all the 5th graders and I said "OK, you're the cream of the crop - I've got HIGH expectations of you." I'm making them think. I'm forcing them to write (0ne kid complained to his teacher "But it's reading - why am I writing so much??) LOL! Wait until he gets to a real English lit class. It's not just busywork - it's really high-level critical thinking work. It's a lot of grading - and it's going to be down to the wire. Report cards go home with the kids on the 18th.

So the weekend before I will be grading, grading, grading and doing final report cards.

I know there must be some word out there that I am not coming back; I have no idea what exactly the parents and kids know or don't know. I'd love to let the parents know their kids are at a school where the principal totally fucked over their teacher in JANUARY - totally demoralized the shit out of her - and hasn't set foot in the classroom since December to see what's going on. But I won't do anything that will make the kids feel bad; it's not their fault they got a new teacher who apparently isn't up to the standards of this woman. I refuse to say anything that might make the kids think I don't like them or my job - even if it's true, haha.

The upcoming week is an exciting one I tell you! Thursday I get my stitches off my toe - yay! It looks like a big black spider is living on my toe now. Ick. Wednesday night my mom and I are going to see "Wicked." Everyone I know has seen it - and I truly mean EVERYONE I KNOW! Anyway, I don't normally like musicals but I was finally convinced to go. So we'll see. I have to make my airline and hotel reservations for Atlanta. I'll probably have to sell an arm and a leg just for the airplane ticket. Well, speaking of my bitch principal, I have to go write her an email. It's too long of a story to go into - suffice it to say it has to do with one of my students and she has purposely kept me out of the loop but I have some information she needs about him. She's such an unprofessional pig. And with that, I'm off, until the next blog and God knows when that will be!

Photo: My niece Ella; her expression is pretty much how I feel right now about everything.