so my vp finally came and did my review and i was doing cst prep/review in groups with candy for questions answered correctly kind of a thing. overall, i got a good review like i was pretty sure i would but what cracked me up was this: "at first, things are kind of chaotic and messy and i was wondering if they were ever going to settle down, but then they snapped into focus." what i want to know is, when did they ever snap into focus? it was pretty darn chaotic to me the whole time. it does take them a bit to settle down--probably way much longer, but oh well. they know more than they think they do.

is what she said to me. she said she thinks it's why she never got married, b/c she was always at school. she was talking about how we should be going out with our friends until wee hours of the morning. how does a repsonsible adult do that though? the older i get, the weirder it seems to me to be able to do that, and then go teach? espcially middle school. sound body equals sound mind equals sound teaching yeah? i mean, i kind of flipped during the earthquake drill today. i need to not yell and get so irritated. however all i have to say is WTF?!?!?! if they have been doing this for most of their school lives, then why the F aren't they taking things more seriously? we're talking kids ending up seriously injured or dead b/c they don't know what to do b/c they're acting like preschoolers during a drill. maybe i'm taking this too seriously, but i have been in situations where adults flipped out and couldn't handle something relatively minor and if the kids can't keep it together enough to follow instructions and something like that happens...whoo boy! also, why do i have to walk my kids across the Fing blacktop between two buildings to get to my assigned spot? why don't i just go out the backdoor and to the parking lot to the field? that seems more roundabout but safer...plus, our admin sucks and just keeps sucking harder. idk. thing is, this is my life. this is my intended purpose. God created me to do this, teach middle school. it's a spiritual gift, loving/understanding them the way that i do. and i'm far from perfect at it, but boy does that knowledge help me deal with a lot of the crap we have to put up with. there is a lot that is wrong with my life and heck, there is a lot that could be improved upon with my teaching, but this is the one thing i've gotten consistently right and that means something to me.

i will do almost anything other than grade this year. that includes other things i'm not fond of doing, such as working out and cleaning my classroom, house or car. this works ok for the most part as i know how the kids are doing really, i just don't have the physical proof recorded as such. yes, i suck. and the kids like to know how they are doing. but honestly, it's only the C kids who aren't really sure how they are doing. the As and the Fs are pretty obvious. or you would think so. and quite frankly, that's how my classes fall this year. except LA. no Fs a couple of As and a bunch of Bs. blah.

i made several phone calls home yesterday after playing enforcer for what seemed like the entire day. started this morning off with an intense parent-teacher-student conference that ended decently and i was totally unprepped for the day, but managed to pull it off. things were a bit better. i remembered to show some empahty and compassion and smoothed over some rough edges. also a couple of those phone calls home last night were positive and that helped. got to do more of those. got to let 'em know i care.

that's what i felt like today. if they want to test the boundaries, that's the age group right? well there were just too many of them today. so many of them are crying out for help too, on top of their middle school angst. i printed out the full serenity prayer and the prayer of st. francis of assissi. i'm going to tape them to my computer monitor as a reminder of how to discipline and set boundaries appropriately. early conference tomorrow due to a girl walking out of detention. sigh.

so a couple of my students that i thought were awfully friendly with each other, well, it turns out they were dating and have now broken up! no wonder they haven't been getting any work done in class, as they sit next to each other. one of my after school girls told me. not to be a gossip, but b/c she thought i should know to keep an eye on things as she is cousins with one girl and bff witht eh other. the interesting part of the story is, it sounds like a good handful of the students know and there have been no incidents of harassment, which seems unusual for middle school, although i will say that saying a boy is gay or a *** is taken more seriously as an inuslt than girls take being called ***. usually. we'll see how the drama unfolds.

we went to the zoo. it's free zoo day the first wednesday of every month. in san francisco. our lovely science teacher has been teaching 8th grade up until now and had never been there before. she originally wanted to let the kids buddy up in pairs to go around and just check in with the chaperones. i just had to share from last two years: gangstas and baby mamas, the homeless, random youths similiar to the ones that were invovled in december's tiger incident asking for our seventh grade girls' numbers, people smoking weed in the bushes, and of course all the other school groups, day care groups and parents with small children. so we stuck to chaperoned groups. this was fine. got my group: all girls, most of them i knew. pretty excited to be with me. bus driver all nice, not too strict. kids not too crazy on bus. get out and go. turns out one girl goes to the zoo frequently with her family and was pretty into being our tour guide :) fun times. did our assigned task of researching the flamingos and then happily wandered the zoo, including the petting zoo, where we had a good ol' time feeding, petting and brushing the goats, sheep, horses, etc. new grizzly habitat is awsome. baby tamarins were adorable! on the way out of the zoo, i picked up a kid from another group who was alone and took him back to the bus with us and called his group leader--another teacher--on my cell to tell him he was ok. same teacher's group came straggling back in twos and threes ALL WITHOUT THEIR TEACHER who came back a bit behind. Bus ride home, again, uneventful. Get back right before dismissal and let the kids go. Everything's copacetic right? oh no...LATER THAT AFTERNOON I find out that the school was called b/c students were harassing the goats in the petting zoo. kids that were supposed to be with the same teacher whose errant student i found just before leaving the zoo. kids that should not have gone on the trip at all, except that admin told the science teacher "unless a kid is a serious behavior problem, he/she can't be held back from an academic field trip." thing is, we in previous years we never took kids we thought would be a problem or were flunking, b/c not listening and following directions(not working) is a safety issue and admin never argued. our current science teacher is, well, she's very nice and tends to think positive and she went along with admin and there were kids on the trip i would not have taken. and somehow most of these kids ended up with our friend who let his group wander the zoo unattended. and the whole school knows--i mean of course the staff. news like that travels very quickly. people have been cornering me in the staff room for the last two days. i'm like, 'um, so-and-so is over there in the corner, plus, this is none of your business." one of our more *extreme* teachers said she heard someone sexually molested the goat. i dunno. i'm just glad the science trip to great america, we're all on the same page about Fs being a safety issue out of the classroom. things are going to be a bit heated if we keep caving in to these situations for our team events. i won't be going on the end of the year camping trip if any student with an F is going. that's not the point of the trip. hell, i'm ready to call it off since the kids did such a poor job of fundraising. my current team doesn't seem to get it. we only take the kids who are seriously deserving of it. if that means it's all the teachers and 5 students, so be it. eh...

i get one area of my life together or maybe even two and then the other areas that were ok get worse and then if i focus on those then i lose the ones i had? i feel like a middle schooler. i'm turning 30 at the end of may and i'm not quite feeling the grown-upness that i think i should be feeling. my life certainly doesn't reflect much grownupness. and then other times it does. being a teacher has forced me to be a better person in some ways. i am still having a hard time finding the balance between grading and having a life--prepping isn't a problem really, but then again i could definitely improve in that area--but on the other hand, i find myself making better choices in other areas of my life b/c of how i think it will affect my teaching or what would my students think/feel and trying to avoid being a hypocrite since i'm supposed to be setting an example and they do look up to me. it's amazing how much just a tiny bit of impact can have on a student. it's not like i expect my students to think i am infallible and i know that it helps them to see that i am human, ie not perfect and capable of learning and growing from my mistakes, it's just, sigh, hard. i guess it must be kind of like having kids? you might be an ass, but the very existence of your child makes you grow up a bit, if you are any kind of adult? anyone? anyone? buellar?

the wrinkles smoothed themselves out after yesterday. sigh. i just don't like being a *** the first day back from a break, but i guess they needed it, b/c all my classes went much more smoothly today. and a couple of them have even started to work...now that it's the end of the 3rd quarter. and i was able to give one of the major knuckleheads a compliment today and that made me feel better, being able to recognize a positive behavior b/c it's been awhile for this kid. preseason baze-ball games this weekend. should be a fun time. :)

with being back from break. i swear. behavior was more off than one would have supposed. i've never seen anything like this. they all want a day to readjust when we get back from any time off, including a 3 day weekend. turns out i was fine today, once i got up, dressed and in the car i was kind of looking forward to everything. didn't go badly for me at all. but then again, i like poetry. and love history. and teaching :) love my kids!

my spring break is officially over. it is now march 25 and time to get back to teaching. i don't want to. at all. it is 1am and i am still awake, waiting for my nails to dry while i type this. i am in total denial that school is back in session. being sick--in bed doing nothing but watching dvds and sleeping sick--for 5 days basically didn't count. i had to bust my butt today running around trying to get all my errands done. i did go to the gym this evening tho. yay me! i do need to sleep--getting enough sleep seems to be a major key in staying healthy, but i'm not ready yet. not ready...

pros: 1. no sub plans/notes to worry about 2. no flaky sub to worry about 3. continuity of academics and classroom management 4. no sick days used 5. can watch tv/sleep all day and not feel guilty about catching up on all the things that i should be getting caught up on while i have the time cons:1. I'M SICK ON MY SPRING BREAK!!! 2. losing time to play catch-up 3. losing revenue from second job 4. man from down the hall said maybe would come visit me at second job---not that i am holding my breath, but it would be nice plus the fact that he even thought about it--and i won't be there. 5. I'M SICK ON MY SPRING BREAK!!! 6. allergies and cold symptoms battling it out for supremacy. trying not to combine too many meds for too many symptoms so as not to hurt liver/stomach lining/not letting virus/body get used to types of meds either. 7. BLECH!

a million voices crying out, silenced. so says my aunt after i tell her that the whole state of ca was pink slipped today. preschool to uc. gotta love those budget cuts. only 36 people were pink slipped in my district, as opposed to the 68 that were originally slated. chances are all those people will be rehired but it sucks, since they probably won't know until june and its not exactly like anyone is going to be hiring right now, is it?

not that one would know that from this blog. i do write well, a combination of natural skill and quality education(all of which in the ca public school system until college) but i sometimes forget? not forget exactly. according to the email i got from my btsa coordinator, i floored her with my entry on diversity. not just my writing, but my philosophy or approach to reaching my students. which is very basic: accept them for who they are as individuals. essentialy, unconditional love. the love my parents, teachers, youth ministers, sunday school teachers, and other adults in my life showered on me, modeled for me, no matter what idiotic things i have done. that love included validation of my feelings( no matter how horrible the feelings were) and recrimination for actions that were not acceptable as well as praise when i do the right thing. and all this has led me to-attempt-to treat my students this way. i wonder if it would surprise my program coordinator that I'm a Christian. I know it surprises other people b/c my walk has strayed so far from my talk that I barely even bother to talk anymore. I'm getting back to my roots, but it's taking a good long while, I tell you. Teaching is the only area of my life where I have trusted God fully and it shows, I suppose, I hope, maybe? I have been little miss sunshine this year sometimes and it's all because I have followed God, or rather, allowed him to lead me to my school home. On the first try. Not that it's been easy:) I just hear the way some of my colleagues talk and I want to ask them, well, I don't know. Something along the lines of finding God I suppose. Altho my history buddy down the hall, I want to ask him if he's actually tried being Jewish, b/c he got bar mitzvahed for his dad's sake and never looked back. And he's so stressed over the fact that he's going to be pink slipped next Friday...I know our principal will fight for him, but the budget cuts...and who wants to wait until june or the day before school starts to find out if he has a job? i said he should lead the revolution. burn it down and start over. 100 8th graders, a roll of duct tape and you can take over the world. or so says he. i'd like to see him do it, personally:) sigh.

administering state writing test tomorrow. joy. get to prowl up and down or sit at my desk. it's supposed to be taken in 4th, 7th and 10th grade but a fellow barista who is a jr in high school said he didn't take any writing test last year. curiouser and curiouser...