Soul Journey

Looks like life has gotten in the way of blogging once again. I think that is just fine though. Here are updates.

As of last Friday I started teaching the Seniors. This group of seniors is so disenchanted with life. They enter my room quietly, sit quietly, and leave quietly. Getting them to talk to me is equally as hard as getting my third period (worst period) to shut up. I have considered different types of ways to get them to be more active because simply asking them, and being real with them, is failing miserably. One idea I had was to make a deal that if they participated in class discussions (poetry analysis and Romanticism) then I would let them teach me something. Considering the things that they could teach me (Stoicism 101) led me to trash that idea. Back to drawing board.
The first day I taught them we had a "discussion" on poetry as a representation of culture. They brought in song lyrics and we discussed whether or not the song qualified as poetry. We attempted to identify unique traits of each students individual culture, which was insanely hard. When did the population of school age children become so homogeneous? Differences include race, socio-economic status, and, uh, I guess that is all they thought of. WHAT? Back to the story...
After my monologue spotted with "yeahs" and "I disagrees" from my audience I asked them to write a poem that accurately represented the culture from which they come. By the way, when they said "I disagree" I would really sink my teeth in and get them talking, but it didn't work. Generally, I give my kids a choice of whether or not they want to share, but not these guys, they had to share. Asia's turn to share came about and she stood up, marched to the front of the class (not required) and began to cry. She then shared with us a poem she wrote about her step-brother getting shot outside of a QuickMart three days prior. I had no idea.

That class is a true melting pot, with hot wings and caviar covering white, steamed rice. Some of those kids are bound for ivy league schools, and the only way that the others would see the halls of Yale is from behind a mop. Why mix kids on such drastic levels? It is beyond me. Quite a challenge.

My freshmen are cute. They stress more than I do. In the past four days two beautiful, bright little ladies have come to me crying because grades in other classes or because they had a test coming up. It is wrong for 14 year old children to be crying over an 89. CT is going to bring it up at her Dept. Chair meeting today. Basically Math and Geography are swallowing the kids whole and because of that I am afraid to give any homework, which is fine. However, I do not want to feel guilty for assigning some if it is necessary. Poor babies. So much pressure on them to succeed, when they don't even know what success is yet. Not for themselves.

Tonight is Halloween. I love Halloween.
Friday I was Karl Marx with a yellow party hat on. A member of the Communist party! Get it? It was bad. Nobody got it.

Teaching has really hindered my ability to be able to deal with my own life. Currently, I am working on a plan to find my head again and resurrect part of my heart. Wish me luck. This is what is most important of all.

Throwing in the Towel

Today I submitted an application for Fulton County. Now this may seem like the normal progression of things to most, but in my heart I don't know if saying the "Pledge of Allegiance" every morning and being cut off by obnoxious bells is where I want to be. There was this time a few years ago in a 9th grade classroom when I got this feeling of overwhelming rightness. I don't know if that is proper use, but that is what it was. I knew, I mean I knew, that teaching was my calling. I was meant to stand before curious students and preach the good words of ancient and contemporary truths, to ask unanswerable questions, and to learn by teaching for a long, long time. Unfortunately my heart is no longer filled with that rightness. I find myself struggling to remember my passions regarding public education, I make lists of the things I wanted to do, the impact I hoped to make. I forget so easily and it is so very hard to jog my memory (which is probably as good as a newborn baby's to begin with) of why I wanted to be there in the first place.

The real world jitters or anxiousness of becoming a real life grown-up is common, from what I have been told, for most college graduates. I listen and nod and pretend like the advice, that I am not really even asking for, makes sense or helps guide me. Truth is, I don't know if this is only butterflies about becoming a big kid or if I have spent the past few years preparing for a life that is not going to be mine. All I am sure of is that whatever I do for my career will be something I am passionate about. I get to make that choice. I just have to remember my passions first.

I submitted my application today because I owe it to myself to try this on my own, for a little while. Hopefully I will get the job at my school now for the last semester. That way I don't have to sign in blood for an entire year. I can get my feet wet, have my own classroom, and make a better decision when I am hopefully at a more stable period in my life.

My certainties often cower in the face of my doubts. I am losing my knack for convincing myself of things. Wish me luck I guess.

Check your Crack at the Door

Gone are the days of Kriss Kross and their backwards Oshkosh, and apparently the days of civil rights are too.

The dreariness of my morning was enhanced when NPR informed my curious little noggin' that a small, rural community near my hometown (like 10 miles out) has officially "outlawed" baggy pants. I would like to take a minute and consider this as I have already dismissed such a rule, excuse me, law, from existing in my head. I imagine it deserves some thought. It is, after all, the stupidest thing I have heard of since this girl:



After the first mention of this conspiracy to oust baggy pants I joked with my room mate and told her as I passed kids in the hallway at school I would sometimes say (in my head of course) "you are under arrest, pull up your pants scoundrel!" Then laugh to myself as I promenaded down the hall taking notice of all the "Drug Free is the way to Be!" signs that are posted for Red Ribbon Week. Did I mention it is Red Ribbon Week and that kids do drugs...lots of drugs...lots of kids? But, yeah, OH, back to baggy pants - the real issue here. So it's done. Somewhere in the state of GA all of those booties will be carefully shielded from eyes of those poor sweet tea drinkin' Southerners. Oh boy, I don't know what to do with this law.

I am going to continue walking through the halls singing "Bad boys, Bad boys..." to myself not because I agree with this rule, but because I think it is absolutely ridiculous to worry about saggy pants (and insanely funny). Maybe next time I go home I will wear my britches extra low...just to try those suckers.

I was also working on analogies today trying to get my kids some extra practice. You guys try this one:

Umbrella : Clear Night :: Law :

a. Teen Drug Use
b. Teen Violence
c. Pants riding low
d. Gang Violence

Sometimes I think our society has progressed, then I turn on the radio.

Potable

[in the midst of a vocabulary review Ms. C learns a new joke]

Ms. C: "Potable is an adjective meaning fit to drink."

[repeat]

Ms. C: "Can anyone use potable in a sentence? Oh, okay Emily."

Emily: "People over 21 are potable."

Ms. C: "Ahhahahahahahah! Only some my friend, only some."

My Fickle Universe

My week has been crazier than seven witches cackling around a cauldron of stone soup!

Too many days have passed since I last posted. That in no way, however, represents the amount I have been thinking, reflecting, or crying about teaching. I had my first almost-quarter-life crisis last week. I started doing that thing that all college students do before embarking on a journey into the unknown land of business casual: questioning my path. While I do like teaching, I feel that the practice of disciplining, grading, and hollering have really covered my passions in a layer of foul-smelling kid germs. I want to love it. I know that I won't love it it every day, but I want to love it most days. Loving Literature and teaching children are far different worlds and while I am adjusting and the kids are enjoying me, most days I just want to love Literature. I don't like having to ask kids to stop talking every time I want to talk. I have only two rules: don't be rude and be respectful. The first falls under the latter really, but that is how I break it down for them. I tell them when they are being rude and it usually works for about five seconds. Not a bad deal, eh? I just want to read literature and talk about it! Let's write some good stuff too.

So Sunday there I was, all hugging my knees to my chest in my living room, wondering what the hell I would do with myself if I didn't go into teaching and thinking of all the different ailments that I could fake on Monday when it came to me that I no longer wanted to be a teacher! I decided to graduate and then figure it out. Monday I went into school and CT asked how I was doing, I told the truth, she basically offered me a job.
The universe toys with me.

I am, of course, going to give it a shot before writing it off. I just want to be a student forever. Write papers. Read books. Drink coffee. Sleep late. Think all the time about all the questions that I will never have answers for, all the while, simply loving the questions themselves. Alas, I must try what I have worked so hard for...then grad school. Seven years!

I am pulling myself out of this abysmal life confusion. Student teaching is a crazy, demon hell ride. My knuckles are white and I am doing my best to hang on.

I saw a sneak preview of Lions for Lambs, the new Robert Redford movie. Go see it. No joke. Go. As soon as it comes out.

Asian Wisdom and Mariachi Madness

Tuesday night my sleep was interrupted by a nightmare I had where my ex-boyfriend and one of my Seniors were dating. When I woke up I was hyperventilating and crying.
Only two thoughts were in my head after I suddenly awoke: 1. I wish both of those jerks would keep outta my head and 2. I need a freaking break!

This week has been rather chaotic. Monday my students were wearing sombreros, playing with marionettes, bouncing eyeballs, magic wands, wigs, and a Webster's dictionary. It was our final (very informal) assessment to wrap up this characterization stuff and we decided that this assignment was silly as hell then asked ourselves, "Why do it?" Our response was simply, "Why not?"

The assignment was to get one of the totally random props that we had provided for them and then to partner up. They were to each perform an interview using questions that I had developed plus some of their own all focused primarily on the prop and their partners relationship with/to it. They had to basically develop turn their partner into a character based on the prop. Next they had to create a Word Portrait, which was just like the Word Photos (below) except a portrait of their partner/character and his/her prop. Finally, this was the totally random part, they had to pose their character/partner in a pose that was relevant to his/her attitude as a new character and fingerpaint a portrait of them...in two minutes. I am evil.

It was fun, but wow was it hectic. Wednesday was especially strange. Not sure why...my mind has been really running away from me lately and just feel frazzled. So after the longest day ever on Wednesday I decided to open one of the props, a fortune cookie, just to read the fortune. As if I didn't already know that my day had been bad enough with the sub who doesn't complete anything - including a simple thought, and kids who can't stop talking for fear that the attention will be directed towards me, the teacher, my fortune was exactly what I needed to quit my day.
It read: Today your mouth will be moving, but no one will be listening.

It was then that I calmly closed my grade book, put the pathetic excuses for essays that I am currently grading into my bag and marched out of that hell hole. After, of course, I taped my fortune to the desk.

Week In Review

My life is a mini-wreck right now, the state of health I am in is adding a few worry wrinkles to my forehead, and my kitten has learned to play rough. However tomorrow I depart for the North GA mountains and set up camp for the weekend. I am brining One Hundred Years of Solitude with me. Gonna read that first. Then I will read God of Small Things. If you all want to suggest and reading to me then please do. I promise to consider it. I am going to share some touching word photos that bring my thoughts from yesterday, the ones about trauma being hard and thus sticking around, to light a bit. Here they are. Of course, names have been changed.

Word Photo #1
His father took his sister and him to the hospice for one last moment ot see their mother. She was lying on her bed peacefully, beneath a soft white sheet and a blue cotton blanket. The room was solely lit up by the light from out the glass doors to the garden. Her face was finally showing signs of tranquility, instead of suffering and pain. There were no breathing tubes, no water bags, just her gentle face. He walked up beside her and hugged her as gently as he could, as not ot disturb her as if she were only sleeping. He wept upon her shoulder for a long time as he remembered all of the moments that she was there to help him. As he was walking to the door, he took one last look at her peaceful body and wondered why it had to be this way.

Word Photo #2
The doors slamming all throughout the house. Frightened and worreid, Emily ran to her older sister's room for comfort. These were the only times the two got along. They huddled together in the room too big for a twelve year old, watching the blue walls as if they held the secrets to the fights, waiting for any clue of what to do. The sound of angry footsteps echoed the hall, and they prayed that it was over. Emily squeezed through the door to see the opening to the rest of the house. Little green pebbles sliced the soles of her feet as she crept to where it had all started. It was broken glass, a memory of the war. She saw her mother, cradled on the floor and sobbing, and she knew that hte beloved high school sweethearts had finally given up.


One thing that I have been told numerous times is that "we all have a story to tell." It is so true. Each one of these kids have stories. Difficult stories of charmed lives gone sour, stories of becoming men and women through religious confirmations, stories of leaving and being left of loving and denying, and of trying to make sense of a world which moves around them too fast to fully understand. The kids, people, who wrote these memories for me to read are such good people. Smart people with good hearts. I have been thinking a lot lately about what it means to be a "good man" or a "good woman." My father used to describe some people in his life (an elite few) as "good men/women" and as a child I never understood. I now do. I now strive to be a good woman/person. It isn't something you have to try to do...you just do it. You are good to people you love to people you don't to people you will never have the opportunity to know and, of course, to yourself. These kids are still kids, but they are good people. They have sincerity in their hearts and a humbling kindness that they have acquired somehow, somewhere on thier short journey. Thier stories break my heart, thier lives inspire me. I am a lucky girl.

Mama Said

I finished reading Dorian Gray this week. Wilde is very quotable. Generally, after I finish a book I will go back through it and type up all of the quotes that I have highlighted or underlined onto my computer so that I may return to them whenever I need to. I typed up a total of three pages from Dorian Gray and here are a few of my favorite:

"The value of an idea has nothing to do with the sincerity of the man who expresses it."
"The harmony of soul and body – how much that is! We in our madness have separated the two, and have invented a realism that is vulgar, an ideality that is void."
"The aim of life is self-development. To realize one’s nature perfectly- that is what each "of us is here for. People are afraid of themselves nowadays."
"Nothing can cure the soul but the sense, just as nothing can cure the senses but the soul."
"Behind every exquisite thing that existed there was something tragic."
"Humanity takes itself too seriously. It’s the world’s original sin. If the caveman had known how to laugh, History would have been different. "
"No life is spoiled but one whose growth is arrested."
"There is a luxury in self-reproach. When we blame ourselves we feel that no one else has the right to blame us. It is the confession, not the priest, that gives us absolution."
"Actual life was chaos, but there was something terribly logical in the imagination."

That was me being picky. I have tons more. I have revisited them all a number of times...thought about them, not through them, and simply appreciated the words. Words are so powerful. Filled with charge. Is there anything more powerful than words?

I have decided to, in my free time, lose myself in other's words. Today I created a list of what I will be reading. These books are not books that my students are reading, they are just books I want to read. I am doing it for me.

I assigned word photos to my kids. An example of a word photo is this:

LAX

She stood in a waiting room amidst white collars and sleeveless shirts, pleated skirts, and baby bottles. Dirty fingernails fidgeting the top of her suitcase, like a tourist who had no sense of direction. Sneakers suffocating her sock-less feet; as her right toes cowardly hid under the left, she stared at the departure times desperate for a solution. She was battling her darkened eyelids, pleading with them to stay open, while simultaneously struggling to keep her emotions in control. Tears made tiny wade pools in her lower lid, she clenched her jaw, lit her last Parliament and took a seat right there in the corner. Wishing to be invisible.

That is about a time when I went to LA and didn't tell my mom. I missed my flight and didn't have a credit card or a telephone and thought I was pretty screwed. The idea is to freeze time and recreate it with images and senses. Showing, not telling, what the event was that took place. Most of them didn't really get the idea and turned in a narrative. However, a lot of the kids wrote about a very traumatic time: fights their parents had, the fight that we products of divorce know well which acts as a gust of wind that most broken homes cannot withstand, deaths of animals, parents, or friends, or losing their sense of home. CT and I discusses briefly why it is so much easier to remember those tragedies in life. I want to remember a Sunday morning eating my half of the grapefruit, or splitting an Oatmeal Creme Pie into fourths, or something good. My timeline is mostly filled with memories from that painful refuge in my heart that only opens it's door when I need words to write. My biological father, who has been deemed "Driftwood Dad" in many of my writings has butted his way on the page. Why? I never think of that life or him. Why is it that the happy memories slip away into the goings on of life, but these bad memories, the hard ones, wade at the seabed of our minds? I think maybe it is because they are hard and we have to work at them. Bolo in hand we have to find our way out of whatever jungle of madness we have been put into. My mom always said that something is more meaningful if you work for it. Maybe it's the journey that makes them resilient.

Do you hear what I hear?

Megaphones in the hallways, kids in pajamas with artificial freckles painted on their faces, pigtail propellers coming close to sideswiping my face off. Can you guess what this week is?
Homecoming.
I have never realized the wretched powerhouse that is a 16-year-olds vocal cords until 3:40 today. It is my new least favorite thing.

My brain has been a desert lately. I mean, I have been reading, and I have most certainly been thinking, but not too much about questions of the universe that I can apply to my classroom.
I am just trying to figure out my life right now. Forgive me for weak posts...maybe something will knock my brain off balance soon enough and I will have to ponder it. I am always on the lookout for tip-top bumper stickers. I want to start writing again, I just can't find the words I need.

Class is going fine. The kids are being great. I hate grading. We start Flannery O'Connor tomorrow...that makes me happy.