ambition

One of my worst traits is my lack of ambition, I think.

The other night I had dinner with some former coworkers.
We went to a sub-mediocre Chinese buffet where I was spit on for an hour or so by a semi-continent 90 year old, the father of one of them.

Then we all retired to watch a marathon of "Little House on the Prairie".
One did needlepoint of Ringo Starr's head, while the other's boyfriend wheezed a monologue about Stalin's nazi medical experiments in Roswell NM.
Yes, you read that right.
This was my Saturday night.

But back to my point....my lack of ambition.


They'd been pressuring me to leave my school ever since they left, a few years ago.

"You need to just come here. You'll make nearly twice as much as you're making now!" They repeated. "I should have left long ago. Come on, we'll put in a word for you. Here's the number."

I make so little money, less than just about anyone I know.
Heck, I think my students make more than I do. They were only looking out for me. I love them for that.

My job is a nightmare sometimes, believe me....but it's my nightmare, you know?

For many reasons: fear, inertia, comfort, security, commitment, love, laziness...I just didn't feel like going to teach with them there. Of course, they clucked their tongues at me, but I was too afraid.

Now, however, things have changed. I'm still making a pittance, but they're both unemployed now. One because she was laid off in the mass purge of teachers last year, and the other because she's just tired of teaching. Actually, come to think of it, every other teacher I know has quit working in the past few years....burned out. I can understand.

Over "Little House on the Prairie", they both regaled me with horror stories, the defecation in the halls that greeted them every other week, the fires in the bathroom, in the trashcans, the arrests mid class.

They'd both taught murder victims. One had taught a total of three convicted murderers, one of whom had been arrested in the middle of her Social Studies class...for murdering one of her other students in an earlier class.

Thankfully, I've only met my share of murderers at PTA.
I've never taught any, well, yet.
The three murderers (parents of my students), that I have met, by the way, have all been perfectly lovely...much nicer than most parents.

Ironic?

Anyway, if I had gone with them, who knows what would have happened. I'm pretty sure I'd either be unemployed or worse by now.

Maybe my lack of ambition paid off after all, come to think of it. Or not. Who knows.
I'm glad I did not move.

But the next time I'm at dinner with a spitter, I will at least move to the further side of the table.
Baby steps.

The Airconditioners of Chernobyl

The past week or so I've felt just awful. It all started last Thursday or so.
It seems to be nothing more than my biannual fit of allergy-related severe coughing, etc.
At least I hope that's all.
I seem to be just shifting the mucus around my body, from chest to head to ears to head. It's all pretty disgusting.

It's an ugly inheritance from my father (who also gets it the same time), but it's been exacerbated lately by a few other things. One is the ridiculously humid weather around here lately. It's October ferchristsakes! These should be the one and only few weeks that are nice here, and yet they're oppressive. If this is what October has become, there's no hope for us this coming summer.

Book me a room on the sun, please.

The other is that my classroom's AC has given out yet again. It started smoking on May 1 and went out and, except for a few blessed weeks in September, it's been out ever since. This is UNACCEPTABLE! I've told the administration at least 10 times about it and they've half heartedly attempted to fix it, but it never quite sticks. It's been out for a week now this most recent time, and they've yet to follow up on my demands for someone to even investigate.


The last two days, from a combination of the heat and the dizziness caused by being sick, I nearly passed out.
(That'll teach me to lace the corset too tight again, I guess, huh?)

Anyway, I'm not even kidding about the passing out part.

I talked to the assistant principal again today, complaining, and she was sympathetic, but who knows if anything will get done. Our maintenance man can't quite roll himself out of the gutter this week it seems.

Meanwhile, I've been doped up on my father's purloined codeine and any number of other drugs for the past few days. Monday, I'd awakened feeling much better, but since then the combination of stifling heat, overwork and frustration got the better of me.

Anyway, I just got home today to find a welcome movie in my mailbox, one of my favorites, "The Umbrellas of Cherbourg." It's the prettiest most depressing all-French musical ever.
(Or maybe just one of them. Who knows.)

I like to think of it, however, as a movie about wallpaper.

That's what hypnotized me the first time I saw it...fabulous upon fabulous scene of wallpaper.

Oh, and there's the impossibly beautiful Catherine Deneuve, of course....and the equally beautiful Nino Castelnuovo.

It's a lot of pretty.

Sadly, tonight I think I'm too tired to even listen to it.
I might just have to put it on mute.

But that'll work.

ten random things done today while not teaching

1. 7:20 am - Directing traffic

2. 7:40 am - Sweeping three tumble weeds of weave off the floor.

3. 7:50 am - Fetching anti-West Nile mosquito spray for student use. Swamp outside is swarming.

4. 9:00 am - explanation to confused 15 year old that the sun rises in the East.

5. 11:10 am - Halting burgeoning fist fight.

6. 12:00 am - amateur psychological counseling (in lieu of lunch)

7. 1:00 pm - ninety text books carried 300 feet

8. 2:00 pm - furniture assembly (bookcase)

9. 3:30 pm - cleaning smears of menstrual blood left on desk chairs...from two separate students.

10. 4:00 pm - Dishing up money-raising nachos after school.

how I'm feeling right about now.

Yeah, it's been that kind of day.
I'm going to bed.

(Oh, and I still blame Kanye)

Die Nasty

I was reminiscing today about my worst year of teaching (oh, about 17 years after 1989 or so).
The first day, I remember looking over the rolls.

There were two Krystals, one Alexis, one Fallon, and no less than
three Dominiques.

I should have seen it coming.

(If there had been a Sammy Jo, I probably wouldn't be here to type this.)

Overheard, 3 pm

"Yeah. When I get my hair, for Christmas..."

job hazards

So, one of my coworkers had a heart attack today in the class room.
Dropped to the floor. Luckily, it was at work and not in the car on the way over.
She went into surgery and is doing fine.
(Freakishly coincidental article I heard about this weekend here)

In the eight years that I've been here, there've been at least five heart attacks happening at the work place...that I know of.

In those eight years, I've had two coworkers actually die in classroom.
Mondays can be hard.

Today was supposed to be a 14 hour work day, but I'm playing hookie for the last three hours. Screw them.
Oh, and I have to work tomorrow too. Let's just hope I'm not next.

ickjet printer

Needing to print a recommendation letter for a student, I found the one and only functioning printer in the school. In a rush, and lucky to have a turn at it at all, I hurriedly typed the letter and then pressed "print."

As the paper slowly, painfully came out, I could see two inches of gleaming white, just to the middle left, still unprinted.

"Damn!" I thought to myself. "That biology bitch! It's got to be her. She's used up all the ink again, printing up reams of shit from Avon.com again...and every piece of 'inspirational' prayer spam she gets!"

So, as I've been instructed to do, I opened up the printer to "just shake the cahtuhridge a lil, baby" to "get all that ink up in there shooked up."

I had barely lifted it out of the machine, when suddenly a two inch roach took flight from its warm nest inside. It soared majestically into the air, only to come back down to the floor in a six foot arc, just glancing someone's freshly done hair.

There was a frenzy of screaming, as if someone had just been murdered.

As the commotion continued (it may still be going on now, for all I know. I wouldn't doubt it), I put the cartridge back into the printer, closed the top, pressed "print," collected my work, and left.

sorry....just more of my bitching...

Today, I had yet another 11 hour work day. I had to stay late for a meeting in which I learned about the countless new tasks that I will be saddled with soon.
I won't bore you with the details, but suffice to say, there is zero compensation for any of them. Nada.
Also given was a list of the days coming up in which I will be required to work 12 or sometimes 13 hours a day. I believe in the next month, there will be 5 such days.
I won't bore you with the details there either.
This meeting, this little slice of hell, came after a regular day of
being (literally) on my feet from 7:10 until 3:30 during which I am fielding questions/disciplining hormonal adolescents/working my ass off non stop. I teach 125 students in 6 classes a day. I have one hour in which to begin grading the several feet of paperwork I have to do.
(currently 2 feet).

Amazingly enough, I'd have to say that this year is better than last year (you know, when we went without toilets, cafeteria, furniture, AC, etc.)
But last year nearly killed me.

Anyway, I'm just tired of coming home and having to go straight to bed from exhaustion. That's all.
(Ok, now I feel a bit better)

Overheard, while subbing in American History:

"Hey, my auntie told me she saw your daddy the other night."
"Yeah?"
"She was at a bachelorette party. She say he did good.
(cackle of laughter)
"What his name again...Chocolate Hurricane?"
(bigger cackle of laughter)
"Yeah"
(rolls her eyes.)
"We ought to hire him for my birtday next week! You think he do it?"
(cackle of laughter)
"Prolly"
(Chocolate Hurricane's daughter snorts)

"'Shut up girl, I got to pay for your tuition!'"
(Chocolate Hurricane's daughter imitating a deep male voice)
(Another cackle of laughter)

Overheard, 7:30 a.m.

"Hey, you know Tanisha* up in the hospital, right? She got hit last night at the party by that bullet."
"Oh yeah, I heard about that."
"Yeah, and Denise**, she got grazed in the top of her right leg."
"Yeah, I know."

"And did you see that dress Alicia had on? I mean, what was with that bow!?"
"Girl I don't even know."


(** former student
*fellow student)

RIP

The other day, on one of the last days of the semester,
as I was busily grading, I was interrupted by our principal.
For some reason, when I looked up at her, I knew it wasn't good.
"Did you hear about Sabrina?" she asked.
I was confused. I had a student named Sabrina this year, but certainly hadn't heard anything about her.
"No" I said, confused.
She handed me a piece of paper. It was a news report from Mississippi.
Then it all registered. It was my former student that she meant.

"She died Friday in a traffic accident."
I couldn't speak. I didn't know what to say. Stupidly, the most I could say was "Oh my God. Oh my God. I was just thinking about her!" Which I had been, for some reason, a few weeks before...wondering how she was doing.

She went on, explaining, "She and her friend were going back to Texas. That's where her parents had relocated after the hurricane, to visit from college and that's when it happened"

I glanced at the paper. It was a freakish, fiery, horrific accident. I couldn't bear to read it. I didn't need or want to read it.
I couldn't bear to rest my eyes on the photo enough to let it to come into focus.


I had helped her get into that college. She and I had worked every day after school for nearly a month on her application essays. She was dogged in her determination to get it better and I was harder on her than usual. She and I had a closer relationship than most of my students......maybe any of them. She wanted to major in history. She was good with it too. She loved the history part of my class. She irritated the other girls with her answering correctly all the time, but she tutored them unselfishly too. I had actually helped convince her to become a teacher.
She hadn't thought of it before she told me. She would have been a wonderful one.

She's not the first student (or last I'm sure) of mine that has died.

No. In fact, the during the very first months I ever taught at a high school a student of mine committed suicide.

But Sabrina was different. I think anyone who taught her, who knew her, would say the same. I know they would.

She was 20 years old, and believe me, the world is a sadder place for her loss.

Pomp and Circumstance

Saturday was the mayoral election day for New Orleans,
and our graduation day too.
The Mayor made a stop by on the day to say a few words, dressed in a polo shirt and running as if on a sprint. I thought it was nice of him to drop by.

All in all, this year's graduation was a very nice affair...there was no AC or anything, and it lasted nearly 3 hours....but very dignified.

It was in very sharp contrast to last year's graduation, however.
Last year, at the Mahalia Jackson Theater, all of 10 feet away from me a 200 pound woman and her date, he in a navy suit, she in a light yellow chiffon summer dress, were violently wrestled to the ground by two NOPD officers, cuffed and dragged off screaming through the aisles. (They resisted arrest, she bit the police officer...etc.)

Then the ceremony resumed.
The incident had occured right at the P's, so we had the rest of the alphabet to go.

Only the lonely

There's this girl in one of my classes.

For the first few weeks of the few months I've been teaching her, she just blended into the mass of students before me. I have nearly 180 students after all. It's taken a while to differentiate between them, but by now, I have.

She sits right up near me, in a very overcrowded classroom. Perhaps that was the reason I didn't really notice her. She is, after all, literally right under my nose, all of 2 feet under my nose to be exact. It's hard to see that close.

She's very tall, very gangly, ungainly really, wears thick glasses, with bad teeth, very, very smart, and very, very quiet.

Lately, for the past month or so, for whatever reason, I find myself thinking about her a lot.
I find myself worrying about her. I don't quite know why.

She's an honor student. The honor students use my classroom to help tutor other struggling students each week. Since their moderator is an inveterate no-show, I usually watch over them. (Gratis)
Of course, there's no tutoring going on, since tutorees are even more of a no-show than the moderator. The tutors, thus, are left to their own devices....usually a lot of arguing about restaurants.

A few months ago I was distracted from the monotony of grading and watched the social dynamics unfold before me.

I think it was then that I became fixated on her. As the other girls and guys clumped themselves into little groups, arguing, chatting, flirting, my student sat primly in her desk, waiting for tutorees who will never show.
She didn't use the time doing her own homework. She didn't talk. She didn't even put her head down and sleep. She ignored the chatter and giggling, the flirting and waited alone, silently, primly, for tutorees that would never come.

The other students don't actively shun her. There's no active ostracizing going on. It's nothing like that. I've never once heard anyone ridicule her (and Lord knows, they *do* ridicule each other, sometimes mercilessly), and as a smart, ungainly young woman she is certainly bait for ridicule...and we all know how horrible high school is. No, I've never seen anyone ridicule her.


But I've never seen one talk to her either. Ever.

It's as if she is just there to them, like she was to me for the first few weeks of school.

I think it was right there that day after school, as I sat hearing her peers chatter and argue and flirt, watching her sitting in her desk waiting primly, that I put aside my red pen....and felt my heart break.

I think I would have cried if I could have.

Now, I know, I know, it doesn't take a psychotherapist or anything to realize that I'm projecting onto her. That's pretty obvious. I have always identified with the lonely. It goes very far back, and is deep seated.

But it just feels more than that for some reason. Yes, it may be "about me" in way, but it's *not* about me too, if that makes any sense.

Anyway, last night I met her mother and grandmother, both very friendly women, the archetypal black church women, properly dressed, perfectly spoken, proper.

I was shocked to meet them. I had been through the endless line of failing and borderline students' parents. That's who you meet at these things. That's who you're there for. That's who you're prepared for. Certainly not for the parents of someone like her. I was actually taken aback by them being there. They disrupted my train of thought.

I was honestly flustered.

I didn't know what to say. My well honed spiel about "well, he/she just needs to study more" and "please make sure he/she does the extra credit" was derailed. I didn't know what to say at all.
So, as happens sometimes when I'm flustered, I blurted out the truth. I shook her mother's hand and said, "I just don't know what to say. I really can't say enough good things about your daughter!"

At that, her daughter, whom I've never seen smile, not once...not ever...lit up. That made me happy.....but not happy enough to not be still worrying about her right now.

Lights....camera...action (?)

Today my entire second period was filmed by the Discovery Channel.

Lights...booms...cameras....34 students.....35 desks....36 chairs....5 crew members....me, all crammed together in a not-so-large class room.

The director had told me that morning just 10 minutes before class began, that they'd like to film. What could I say?
I was told it would only be for a few minutes, but they ended up filming for an hour.

Several weeks ago my class was interupted by a crew of Japanese filmakers. They've been staying with us for the past few months, filming a documentary for Japanese television.

(Apparently the Japanese are fascinated by black youth in New Orleans. Or maybe they're just crazy over Beowulf, who knows.)

The Japanese were the test run for the subsequent camera crews who have filmed the class. By this point, the students are pretty nonchalant about it.

I remember during the first filming thinking, "Thank God, I don't live in Japan, and hopefully will never have to see myself on camera. I guess it won't be so bad."

I had been filmed briefly a few weeks before by the local news, and that was bad enough. My mother rushed to tell me that she'd seen me on the news. Thankfully, she doesn't know how to operate the VCR. I thought the worst was over. Little did I know.

CNN was here a few days ago as well. (I didn't see them, however)

MTV comes soon, I'm not sure why.

Some sort of "Extreme" Home Makeover show is supposed to come as well...the one with the carpenter from the former "Trading Spaces". I have no idea what they're planning to do. Lets hope it's something about the moldy smell throughout the school.

A few days ago, badly needing to use the restroom, I opened my door, only to find myself blinded by floodlights of the Washington Post cameraman, setting up a photo op in the hall way.

All in all, it's rather disconcerting to teach with cameras and lights on you. I just have to make sure my mother cancels her cable sometime before any of this gets aired.

The Unemployment Follies

After much searching, I finally found and called the number for the "Katrina disaster unemployment" months ago...(after, of course, filing and being rejected for "ordinary" unemployment....twice....)
I understood *that* rejection, because of my being a teacher and all...seems, as I found out from fellow teachers and my friend Joan, who is the head of finance at a school, that federal law (or something equally mysterious) does not mandate that schools pay unemployment...but I digress...)

My fellow newly unemployed teachers (thanks Katrina) had informed me that although we weren't eligible for "ordinary" unemployment, we were eligible for the disaster unemployment. What they failed to tell me is that they had all received it from their evacuation to other states
(note to self: try to evacuate to *any* freaking state but Louisiana next time.)

First try at FEMA ended with the suggestion by the FEMA worker that I "Give up teaching." She told me motherly, "You know Burger King is offering, I think, a big sign up bonus!"
"Uhhhh....." I didn't quite know what to say then.
She then gave me the single best piece of disaster advice I got.
"You know, next time this happens" She told me, again motherly. "You really ought to evacuate out of state. They really helped us out there in Texas."
This was the sum of my help by FEMA.
(I'm not making this up)

The other FEMA person I talked to was more brusque. "We don't have disaster unemployment in this state." He tells me, when I point out those very words with a box to be checked off on the form he gave me, he ignores it.
Turns out he was lying...or just ignorant...or both.
There *is* disaster unemployment here in this state. I just don't know what hoops one must jump through to get it however.


Anyway, after calling the super secret "disaster unemployment" phone number
several times a day for weeks, only ever getting a busy signal, by some miracle,
I finally lucked out and got a real person. Can you believe it??

I answered all of his countless questions....then he stumped me with the very vital (???) detail of "my former place of employment's zip code." Ummm...Like I would remember that offhand. Hell, I don't even have a pay stub left. That's a long rotted mass of papier mache now.

Anyway....while maniacly looking for it, the bastard hung up on me, which
initiated another day's worth of calling....and finally, miracle of miracles...
I got through again.

I filed with the woman who answered this time. (Believe you me, I knew the zip
code this time)
"We'll be sending you something in the mail shortly," she told me chirpily.

Oh yeah, they sent me "something" in the mail shortly all right.
It was yet another rejection letter.
It was *so* frustrating...and all for 90 dollars or so a week I think. I mean come on.
So, I've ended up with what I started with....squat.

Oh, postscript to this saga...yesterday what do I get in the mail, but a note from the unemployment office informing me about the tax I owe on the "unemployment" I never got. How's that??!!
By the way, they didn't even get the address right on the envelope.
Sorry for the rant, but I can't tell you how frustrating it all has been. Argh!

Canadians and cockroaches

So, we have a new student teacher. She's very, very nice....as all Canadians are. I told my friend Mark (a Canadian himself) how very sweet she was.
"Well, we do have a reputation for a certain dull, sterile niceness... quite unlike you friendly, gregarious Americans,"
he told me, completely nonplussed.

She's a breath of fresh air.
(I'm not sure anybody needs that much fresh air in the morning, however)

Today Mark asks me, "I'm sure this Toronto girl is thrilled to be in your exotic city, right?"

Somehow I doubt it.
She's terrified of the roaches. One day last week she squealed in horror, rushing out of one of the bathrooms. I thought she'd seen a corpse in there. "Oh my gosh, there's a dead cockroach in the bathroom!" She screamed, in the cutest Canadian accent. (By the way, she has never been back to that bathroom since.
Never. )

Later, at lunch she was horrified to near shaking by my coworker Robin's descriptions of nutria. We have lunch with her every day, but she never ever eats the food....she eats two slices of whole grain bread, water and a pickle for lunch. (can you imagine?)

All in all, she seems intrigued.... but disgusted (in a nice, Canadian kind of way, of course) by us all. I can only imagine what my girls must think of her....she's so very different from them (though she is a black female too). She might as well be from a different planet. Hell, *I'm* more "ghetto" (as...uh....parlance puts it) than she is.

Still, I think the culture clash has to be good in a way for both of them (us?), right?