Back to the Grindstone
Well, I'm back to work now. I'd be lying if I said I was feeling fresh and excited about the new year. It isn't that I stopped loving the job, or the kids...I just hate the teachers. Waiting tables all summer wasn't particularly ideal, but I genuinely enjoyed the company. It was nice to reconnect with Julia and work with Karen again. I also got to leave my work at work - no late nights grading or Sunday afternoons flipping through books to write lessons. I just vacuumed and went home (which was the house connected to the restaurant...shortest commute ever).
I always had one like soul at school - my friend and coworker Carmen, who, for lack of a better word, just "got" me. She's nothing like me, but we were equally frustrated with the generally idiocy and incompetence of the rest of the staff, and we appreciated each other's intelligence and passion for real education.
This year, though, she left for a Vice-Principal job in Morris County. I kept telling myself I'd be okay without her, but the truth is that she was the closest I had to a friend at work, and it depresses me that she's gone.
I might have had a miniature breakdown about the transition from working with good friends to working with dull, terrible people yesterday morning. I had worked Monday night until about 12:30 and driven home from the restaurant, which landed me at home at about 3:30 - alive, thanks to the double espresso I chugged before I left. Of course I couldn't fall asleep until 3:45 because my heart was still palpitating, and I was up by 5:45 thanks to the double espresso coursing through my intestines like molten lava. I spent the next hour getting ready for school crying for no reason other than feeling sorry for myself for having no friends at school (it's true that you sometimes revert to the age that you teach).
It's not even that I don't get along with the people at school. It's their faces when I tell them that I'm engaged, but that I didn't get a ring, and I haven't set a date. It's the reaction I get when I can't hide that I'm excited about what I'm teaching, or when I tell them that I love a particularly annoying Asperger's student because she's smart as hell and incapable of caring about what other students think about her oddities. It's the eye roll, the amused how-cute look, the okay-weirdo smile. Because, apparently, it's not cool to really care about the state of education, or the kids - complaining is the norm and malicious gossip is en vogue, and expect to be the butt of the gossip when you leave the room.
It's teachers. Teachers are, for the most part, uneducated, uninterested, dull conformists who do their work for their paycheck and try not to think too hard. The vast majority should be fired. Or at least shot.
Anyway.
So, Josh sent me flowers (he had called me during my sobby stage, spidey-sensing that something was wrong) at school, and took me out to a carb and dairy-fest at the Italian place down the road, and then took me home to watch a cowboy movie, and I felt a lot better.
Today was easier than yesterday, and I even got to experience a webcomic-worthy conversation that went like this:
ME: So, in 1900, this scientist predicted that we would have eliminated mosquitos, because they're a nuisance. But we know now why we can't do that, right? So why can't we?
BEN: The fumes would get in our mouths.
ME: Okay. Yes. They might. But even if we could kill them some other, safer way, why can't we kill off all mosquitos? Larisa?
LARISA: Oh! Right. Because we need water.
ME: What?
LARISA: We need water. And swamps.
ME: ...Okay. Let's try this: what eats mosquitos?
EVELYN: Oooh! Ooh! Frogs.
ME: And what eats frogs?
EVELYN: Um. Oh! Snakes.
ME: Good. And what eats snakes?
EVELYN: Uhh...CATS!
ME: Okay. And what...what, uh...eats...
CHRISTIAN: Chinese people!
Food chain lesson fail.
I always had one like soul at school - my friend and coworker Carmen, who, for lack of a better word, just "got" me. She's nothing like me, but we were equally frustrated with the generally idiocy and incompetence of the rest of the staff, and we appreciated each other's intelligence and passion for real education.
This year, though, she left for a Vice-Principal job in Morris County. I kept telling myself I'd be okay without her, but the truth is that she was the closest I had to a friend at work, and it depresses me that she's gone.
I might have had a miniature breakdown about the transition from working with good friends to working with dull, terrible people yesterday morning. I had worked Monday night until about 12:30 and driven home from the restaurant, which landed me at home at about 3:30 - alive, thanks to the double espresso I chugged before I left. Of course I couldn't fall asleep until 3:45 because my heart was still palpitating, and I was up by 5:45 thanks to the double espresso coursing through my intestines like molten lava. I spent the next hour getting ready for school crying for no reason other than feeling sorry for myself for having no friends at school (it's true that you sometimes revert to the age that you teach).
It's not even that I don't get along with the people at school. It's their faces when I tell them that I'm engaged, but that I didn't get a ring, and I haven't set a date. It's the reaction I get when I can't hide that I'm excited about what I'm teaching, or when I tell them that I love a particularly annoying Asperger's student because she's smart as hell and incapable of caring about what other students think about her oddities. It's the eye roll, the amused how-cute look, the okay-weirdo smile. Because, apparently, it's not cool to really care about the state of education, or the kids - complaining is the norm and malicious gossip is en vogue, and expect to be the butt of the gossip when you leave the room.
It's teachers. Teachers are, for the most part, uneducated, uninterested, dull conformists who do their work for their paycheck and try not to think too hard. The vast majority should be fired. Or at least shot.
Anyway.
So, Josh sent me flowers (he had called me during my sobby stage, spidey-sensing that something was wrong) at school, and took me out to a carb and dairy-fest at the Italian place down the road, and then took me home to watch a cowboy movie, and I felt a lot better.
Today was easier than yesterday, and I even got to experience a webcomic-worthy conversation that went like this:
ME: So, in 1900, this scientist predicted that we would have eliminated mosquitos, because they're a nuisance. But we know now why we can't do that, right? So why can't we?
BEN: The fumes would get in our mouths.
ME: Okay. Yes. They might. But even if we could kill them some other, safer way, why can't we kill off all mosquitos? Larisa?
LARISA: Oh! Right. Because we need water.
ME: What?
LARISA: We need water. And swamps.
ME: ...Okay. Let's try this: what eats mosquitos?
EVELYN: Oooh! Ooh! Frogs.
ME: And what eats frogs?
EVELYN: Um. Oh! Snakes.
ME: Good. And what eats snakes?
EVELYN: Uhh...CATS!
ME: Okay. And what...what, uh...eats...
CHRISTIAN: Chinese people!
Food chain lesson fail.