Day from hell
If hell is a place so evil it won't even let me enjoy my misery, insisting instead on throwing in enough crumbs of wonderfulness to keep me from getting a proper mope going. *sigh*
My day started at about 8:30 am when my Wonderful Roommate woke me. Unfortunately, about a mile away a roomful of students had been expecting me to begin class at 8:05. Nice.
Five more days and I would have made it through a semester without this happening. Five more days and the negative evaluation my supervisor wrote would have been less true.
I managed to drag myself out of bed and through the rain, into the school building and up the stairs to my room without making eye contact with anyone. By the time I had to face my students and the kind colleague who was actually teaching them a lesson, my shoulders were almost touching my ears. Luckily, just then a former student strolled in to pick up a letter of recommendation I had promised him. This kid has matured from being a total jerk as a 9th grader to this lovely kid who knows to taunt my uncaffeinated self with tales of the wonderful coffee he had just finished - until I'm rolling my eyes and smiling at him. Dork. Once I'm smiling I can face the masses, and I was OK til they all left the room.
I had trouble concentrating on work, but managed to pull together everything I needed for the upcoming Evil Class. About 10 minutes before that class my supervisor walked in. I hadn't seen her since she had handed me this unexpectedly negative evaluation in mid-December. The evaluation itself was not unfair - it was just heavily influenced by the Evil Class that she had observed (and had told me she would not use as the basis for my evaluation as she felt it was not representative of my work), and by my past dismal attendance record (which she had never witnessed as I had been trying and succeeding Ha! to overcome this term). Whatever. She stopped by to mention that she planned to meet with my Dean to put me on a Corrective Action plan and just basically left me feeling wretched and tenderized just in time for the little monsters.
My Evil Class was totally on a roll. I had some simple heat transfer demonstrations for them which they managed to ruin early on by sticking tape on a hot plate while I wasn't looking. Burnt tape, I learned smells foul. Turns out the smell of a chocolate chip cookie deliberately burned on the same hot plate blends particularly obnoxiously with the smell of burnt tape. It was my damn cookie too, and I was hungry. Also had a kid have a scary meltdown and storm out of the room and I was unable to help because I don't trust the rest of the class to not burn down the building if I leave the room. So I stood by helplessly until one of the kid's friends took it upon himself to go rescue.
By lunch time (no lunch for me as not even I will stop for food when I'm already an hour late) the kindness and concern of my friend and Frequent Lifesaver had me crying. After a hug from her and some pizza from one of my students, by the last class of the day I was hoarse from laughing and all proud of how well they were learning.
And then there's the after school crowd. Kids will come by to make up work or ask for help and they end up staying for hours. Today's afternoon highlights included a lively and funny discussion about the existence of God between a Muslim 12th grade boy and a Buddhist 9th grade girl; and a very revealing conversation with one of the Lesser Demons from the Evil Class. He started out sort of challenging me about some of the rule-breaking that goes on in that class - asking me whether I knew this one girl pretends to go to the bathroom right after I take attendance and then disappears forever. Yes, and I mark her absent. And little by little he ended up telling me all sorts of things I didn't know. Hee! Eventually he asked whether I knew J. had a major plot underway. By this time he had the attention of all of us in the room, and he absolutely loved the dramatic slow reveal of the Evil Drawer of Doom and Stench. J. has spent all week cramming bits of discarded food, gluing them with Gorilla Glue to the bottom of a small inconspicuous drawer, and slowly piling up debris along the runners so it will eventually be almost impossible to open. Lovely. But more importantly, foiled! \o/
By the time they all left they had been conned into some manual labor that I needed done, they'd learned a little physics, and just talked about themselves: their plans for the weekend and for their lives, their families and friends. Lots of teenagers don't get listened to much.
By the time they had all left I sat in my empty classroom and did some moping. There's so much that goes on in there that I Love. And something as silly as an alarm clock or as major as depression could take it away from me.
My day started at about 8:30 am when my Wonderful Roommate woke me. Unfortunately, about a mile away a roomful of students had been expecting me to begin class at 8:05. Nice.
Five more days and I would have made it through a semester without this happening. Five more days and the negative evaluation my supervisor wrote would have been less true.
I managed to drag myself out of bed and through the rain, into the school building and up the stairs to my room without making eye contact with anyone. By the time I had to face my students and the kind colleague who was actually teaching them a lesson, my shoulders were almost touching my ears. Luckily, just then a former student strolled in to pick up a letter of recommendation I had promised him. This kid has matured from being a total jerk as a 9th grader to this lovely kid who knows to taunt my uncaffeinated self with tales of the wonderful coffee he had just finished - until I'm rolling my eyes and smiling at him. Dork. Once I'm smiling I can face the masses, and I was OK til they all left the room.
I had trouble concentrating on work, but managed to pull together everything I needed for the upcoming Evil Class. About 10 minutes before that class my supervisor walked in. I hadn't seen her since she had handed me this unexpectedly negative evaluation in mid-December. The evaluation itself was not unfair - it was just heavily influenced by the Evil Class that she had observed (and had told me she would not use as the basis for my evaluation as she felt it was not representative of my work), and by my past dismal attendance record (which she had never witnessed as I had been trying and succeeding Ha! to overcome this term). Whatever. She stopped by to mention that she planned to meet with my Dean to put me on a Corrective Action plan and just basically left me feeling wretched and tenderized just in time for the little monsters.
My Evil Class was totally on a roll. I had some simple heat transfer demonstrations for them which they managed to ruin early on by sticking tape on a hot plate while I wasn't looking. Burnt tape, I learned smells foul. Turns out the smell of a chocolate chip cookie deliberately burned on the same hot plate blends particularly obnoxiously with the smell of burnt tape. It was my damn cookie too, and I was hungry. Also had a kid have a scary meltdown and storm out of the room and I was unable to help because I don't trust the rest of the class to not burn down the building if I leave the room. So I stood by helplessly until one of the kid's friends took it upon himself to go rescue.
By lunch time (no lunch for me as not even I will stop for food when I'm already an hour late) the kindness and concern of my friend and Frequent Lifesaver had me crying. After a hug from her and some pizza from one of my students, by the last class of the day I was hoarse from laughing and all proud of how well they were learning.
And then there's the after school crowd. Kids will come by to make up work or ask for help and they end up staying for hours. Today's afternoon highlights included a lively and funny discussion about the existence of God between a Muslim 12th grade boy and a Buddhist 9th grade girl; and a very revealing conversation with one of the Lesser Demons from the Evil Class. He started out sort of challenging me about some of the rule-breaking that goes on in that class - asking me whether I knew this one girl pretends to go to the bathroom right after I take attendance and then disappears forever. Yes, and I mark her absent. And little by little he ended up telling me all sorts of things I didn't know. Hee! Eventually he asked whether I knew J. had a major plot underway. By this time he had the attention of all of us in the room, and he absolutely loved the dramatic slow reveal of the Evil Drawer of Doom and Stench. J. has spent all week cramming bits of discarded food, gluing them with Gorilla Glue to the bottom of a small inconspicuous drawer, and slowly piling up debris along the runners so it will eventually be almost impossible to open. Lovely. But more importantly, foiled! \o/
By the time they all left they had been conned into some manual labor that I needed done, they'd learned a little physics, and just talked about themselves: their plans for the weekend and for their lives, their families and friends. Lots of teenagers don't get listened to much.
By the time they had all left I sat in my empty classroom and did some moping. There's so much that goes on in there that I Love. And something as silly as an alarm clock or as major as depression could take it away from me.