Not a racist!

I have one particularly obstinent student (surprising actually, how now I view “badly behaved” students on a huge sliding scale of severity that I barely ever see, much less have to consider) who drives me nuts. I give him a chance, he comes halfway. I give him another chance, he gets halfway, nearly almost done. He’s had several “chances”, based on my giving him the benefit of the doubt because I’ve only ever talked to the kid over the phone.

Today I get an oral presentation.

“It’s me, interviewed by the President of the United States,” he laughs.

Enter your boring job interview questions here, with wind noises (evidently he is standing in the wind on the side of a busy highway or something) for about two or three minutes.

“Thank you Mr. Barack for your time. Oh yeah, I hope  you, like,  get assassinated!”

This was followed by awful stoner shrieks of laughter. I swear to god, if being a racist is a new adolescent fad,  I will start …something contreversial…you better believe me, I tell you whut. Goddamnit. Nothing like ending the day on a highly annoying note. What’s worse, is his facilitator tries to apologise for him, begging me not to give him a zero for a high-mark assignment. Why not wipe his  18 year old ass  too?

Starting Over, Unrepentant Sinner!

In short, push did come to shove, did come to being too drunk to stand, did come to nearly having the police called for noise complaints, did come to a much lower self-esteem than initially started with accompanied by scarily absolute feelings regarding mortality, and things ended.

The following weeks have brought me to B-town, a mere 25 minute drive from W-town, but the differences are dramatic, let me tell you what, though granted,  some of these are psychologically conjured out of blissfully altered state of mind. I live in a creepy old duplex half that makes weird noises and is perpetually drafty, with the two cats and the two snakes.  All the taps drip, and a poltergeist runs around knocking shit over (like the felines) and creeping me out.  It also likes to drink out of the cat’s water dish for some reason. I am the proud new owner of a Co-op share (number 26331), I have bird feeders, and live in a town with 22 churches (more on that later). I DO stuff.

I honestly couldn’t be any happier than I am right now, unless Unicorns existed and we could domesticate them into seeing-eye animals. It’s only been two weeks, and I feel like my chest can expand completely. I can sleep entirely through the night without moving once, even with the variables in cat-sprawl that map the quilt at bed time.

My job still rocks. My co-workers have twisted senses of humour, and my expendable income, despite my heavy-ish rent price, has doubled, now that I’m not spending it on shit I don’t care about.

And Tempest? I got to keep all my books.

Huh? What? I know….

A brief update:

I found out last week that I wasn’t just taking a weird leap into the void of the country side. I got affirmed for a full time probationary position with Distance Learning a la B-town. The boy and I have also been obscenely busy moving stuff from E-town to W-town, which is a mere 25 minutes or so from B-town. A bit of a commute, but I don’t mind that, even in the Boy’s stupid SUV that I hate (he hates my truck, we’re even steven on that one).

We also, after about a month and a half of frantic searching, found a really nice (spontaneously on the same day I got the job offer) duplex in W-town. We thought we were going to have to move to B-town, because that seemed to be the only place where there were vacancies of any kind, but it spontaneously came up on everyone’s favorite local radio trading post, managed by the Boy.

On the same day, lest we get carried away with our two victories, my truck also decided to spray antifreeze all over 101st Avenue, which was a little costly, but nothing major (so I think, although there have been vigorous discussions about it). I then had the dubious honor of spending the night at the Boy’s parent’s place by myself, like it was the only other alternative on the planet. Damn.

This is never a good idea, but it managed to be relatively pain-free. But awkward. His parents are the apples to my oranges, the kiwi to my cactus, the cold to my hot….I’m running out of opposing ideas. They’re fucking space aliens, to be blunt. The boy has his moments of obtuseness, but he is at least capable of abstract or critical thought.

Anyways, I really am missing my friends a lot. Things are going to start settling down relatively quickly for a brief lull before we move into the new place. I will also be back and forth to the city quite frequently, or whenever I have the whim, or it is required of me. And I’m definitely not opposed to driving one hour to hang oot, so don’t just forget about me you hosers, noooo. As an additional bonus, phoning E-town from W-town is NOT long distance, I should add. And vice-versa, I think.

That’s all for now, but I will keep this thing regular if I continue to be somewhat out of the loop.

\\: pwned.

Well, I think I’m going to try and get back into the swing of blogging again. I mean it this time, honestly. I’ve realized with all the teaching and such, the same thing I realized when I started college all those years ago: I need to be able to write to sort out things. Additionally, I have this nasty habit of not achieving much personal growth if I don’t reflect regularly…and first year teachers, we’re supposed to be lean mean reflective machines.

 I am having a “question my profession” day today. This isn’t a PD day no, it’s a crisis actually. It happens at least once every two weeks or so, where I sort of sit through my prep and do nothing but think, “why? Why did I choose to do this again?” or, even worse, “what the fuck am I doing? I have no idea.”  To give you an idea, I have two preps in a day because I work half-time, so this is on any given “question my profession” day, about 160 minutes of me feeling like I’m going to scream for the sake of feeling like a misfit miscreant in my workplace.

Ms.  Misfit Miscreant: Doesn’t act like a teacher that much. Doesn’t look like a teacher that much (hair, dress, Converses with hole in toe, no makeup). Is super fucking smart and knows what she’s talking about (unless she doesn’t care at all), gets along with students great and teaches them more than just the subject, such as valuable life lessons and how to tell a good story,  only achieves ultimate teacherly enthusiasm levels every second or third day for short bursts, (is sarcastic, vaguely humourous and cynical for the rest of the time), does not necessarily have good relationship forged with any staff members, just tenuous alliances, students love her class because it is unorthodox all the time, is capable of getting the job done in an effective (though constantly self doubting manner) manner, although perpetually unorganized and last minute, is a little half-assed, sometimes throws small things at students, not very authoritative (when she is, she sounds like a Dictator, kids respond to that and listen, she feels awful for tone of voice for rest of day, apologizes next day),  unsure of position, unsure of quality of work perpetually, uses overheads too much, strays from the plan too much, doesn’t listen to Student Services enough, knows she is constantly being manipulated, sees when it happens, lets it slide more often than not, even if it creates more work for her in the long run, tired all the time, never has enough time, exasperated when a carefully planned lesson plan goes awry, personally insulted by people who treat her class like a waste of time (even if she feels that half of what she has to teach is a waste of time).

Why? Why is it ok for me to be in a place that is so obviously still an institution pretending not to be one? Why did I think this was an ok thing to choose as a profession? I don’t fit in this job. Instead of getting discouraged though, I think I’ve just realized more acutely that where I need to be is still about a year away, which is going back to school to do my masters.

I realize that it smacks of me wanting to return to the warm comfortable womb of University life, but this isn’t the case. Have you ever been standing in front of the expanse that is the ocean, and been told, “you can only go up to your knees” ? With the stuff that I have to teach here, I’m quite restricted as to what words I use, what concepts I bring up, what kind of activities I propose, etc. When I was teaching I.B. I felt like I was allowed to “go there”, past my knees, and while I can use many of the same techniques and ideas in both of my classes, there’s very much a brain tax limit– what kills me about it, is that it is affecting me that so many teachers that had them previous, didn’t know what the fuck they were supposed to teach these kids. It’s like, they all used all the millions of shallow stupid guides out there to “get them through it” and didn’t attach any sort of significance to it. Here’s a hint: if it’s not significant, they ain’t gonna retain it. The levels of comprehension and grammar use (ok, again, I’m not a grammar hero, but there’s a level I’m at that I’m good with until grade 15 if such a thing were possible), and spelling, and sentence structure junk that they should be at mere months before they start grade 12, are heinously terrible. Like, “you fail at life” terrible. And now, I feel like it’s all on me to turn around and fix, and the prospect just slays me. Where do I even start? The logical place to start is horribly condescending–> the condescending bit would be the only part apparent to an eleventh grader–> spelling tests.

God. Damn. It.

Teh library owns me

I haven’t posted since August 28th, and have probably been thinking of things worthy of posting since then.

Blogging hasn’t held any sort of allure to me lately, up until today. I think I just needed a break and a chance to be off the map. It’s interesting too, because in the absence, I sort of realized that it’s nicer to have privacy perhaps. However, this calls for my annual re-alignment of blogging direction. I at least won’t switch to a different place this time. But more observations on the world perhaps should occur, and less reflections upon myself will appear.

This said, I’ve realized that I’ve missed my self reflections considerably, because I don’t learn “real good” without them.

In world news: Facebook is so goddamn annoying, coupled with the financial shlock that is the rest of my life. I get invited to a lot of stuff. I feel bad if don’t go– I end up going, and spend money I don’t have, and live on peanuts for the rest of the week. I owe people money. My legs are going to be broken any day now.

The reprieve is that I just recently found out I am owed a large large coverall paycheck still. This kills me, because I couldn’t possibly just be “in the money” on a regular basis. Noo…it has to be a surprising and “lucky” windfall or spontaneous event that does (or does not) occur. In this case…for the first time while earning money through one of my mother’s crazy schemes, I actually don’t get the shaft.

In other areas – I went to the highly pretentious art gallery collage-o-thon on Friday night. I bring this up because I went by myself, sat down, and collaged my brains out. And I had a fucking awesome time doing it too. I didn’t talk to anyone, mill, drink, or be a retard draped in all their material assets, and left as quietly as I came. It was actually a lot of fun. They gave us free cheetohs, and all the magazines you could imagine to cut up. The music, for the most part, was also great.

Today was the last day of sailing for Godzeira and I. We had about 5 minutes of actual wind, and spent most of the blazing hot day drifting, feebly tacking, and talking or reading. And, I hate to say it, because I love to sail, but to actually be able to just sit and relax and enjoy the actual boat for what it is for a moment, rather than what it can do, for the sake of memory, was really pleasant. I love still autumn days in an Indian summer and today was definitely one of them. White sails, hot sun, blue sky, and gold in the trees.

In other things… I don’t know. I’m celebrating being solitary I think. I’m not doing so well with writing at all, other than venues I won’t mention, and have swung in the direction of visual arts again. This is tough, because I love it, but don’t have quite the creative maneuverability with it as I do with my writing (i.e. I rock the writing, and performance stuff, and have completely dropped the ball–and my artistic endeavors are always sketchy at best). I’ve been thinking that I’d like to try and show an equal level of committment to both, but as far as art goes– I’ve never showed good levels of committment, and I’d like to try and change that.

Lately, as I walk and eat and breathe, I’ve been looking at everything around me, and thinking about it in a different light (how could I draw that in a comic format?) and thinking heavily about graphic novels. It sounds corny, but I went to the library to get about 9 of them, to just check it out, and it’s grabbed onto me like an infectious disease. Mind you, I’d like to go beyond all the emo crap that I’ve been reading, and actually do something that is noticeably different–so far, this strikes me as a challenge, but not in how you might originally think.

I’ve been writing a short story for a while that I’ve grown rather attached to. However, I had a complete epiphany today, and yes…here I go. I’ve had smaller less complicated ideas re: cartooning, but they weren’t anything near what a graphic novel is all about. And one day, I’ll do them, but …I’ve got a plan. And if anything, it’s just going to be kick-ass fun to do. Plus, I’m still a bum– I totally have time for these things.

Lastly…I feel like I’ve been a social fuck-up lately. It’s kind of bothersome. I can’t just make plans and not have something complicated happen. I’m no longer apparently capable of not being retarded when I drink, so I have to stop that. I also can’t really afford it. I also don’t like going to bars. Still. I hate that now when I go to a bar, I run into people I know other than my friends—who aren’t my friends– that I have to make small talk with, or some other social dance. It bothers me deeply. I am tired of being acquiescing nice  pushover “tell me all your woes” girl, I guess. However, I think primarily the reason that this is bugging me lately is because I don’t like telling people “how I’ve been.” Because, I’m fine with it because I know I’ll be fine (yes, because I’m awesome), but it probably sounds pretty shitty and awful to the second party– and sympathy only makes me want to hurt people.

On the bright side of all this– I told some guy off at the bar a  week ago, and was actually not a bitch really, but just assertive for once. And as much as it might have sounded like I was being a bitch– I was pretty damn proud of myself for sticking up for myself. Yes I was drunk. Yes I should endeavor to do this while not drunk.