Word Vomit: 10/1 Edition

So people keep telling me to post more random shit word vomit blogs. I'm not sure why, but I'll do it. After all, I've never had an issue rambling.


1.
I finally fixed my car. According to the mechanic, it is not a good idea to drive around on your spare tire for a week before getting it fixed. Well, now I know. Also, note to self: If a mechanic asks you why you bought a Rav-4, and you tell him a long, drawn-out story, he will laugh at you.


Long, drawn-out story: 

I was fourteen years old the first time I fell in love. It was a red Jeep Wrangler with no doors. All I wanted was to own a car like that. I spent most of freshman and sophomore year scouring the classifieds trying to buy one used, while attempting to learn how to drive a stick in what spare time I had left. 

This might have worked out if I hadn't blown all my money on clothes and screwed up in school so much that my mother refused to let me get my license until I was 6 months away from college. It ended up working out for the better, because as I later realized, I hate driving. When I got out of grad school, I inherited the minivan, and I'd still be driving that today if crazy lady hadn't slammed into it at the corner of Parsons and Faneuil Street in Brighton. 

When it came time to buy my first real car, I knew one thing: It needed to have a spare tire on the back. I suppose I could've bought a Wrangler, but the Toyota dealer offered me such a good trade-in for my demolished minivan that I couldn't turn it down. Plus, I was sort of emotional. It was right after I watched a season of House in one week, and I kept equating "sold for parts" with "harvesting for organs" and yeah... You could say I'm a bit high strung. So I got a Rav-4. Which I adore. Despite the fact that it's not a Wrangler. Someday. 

Though I will say this: The one downside to having a spare tire on the back of your car is that when you drive around with the spare, you have to put the dead tire in the trunk because the lug nuts don't match, which means you're driving around with what looks like a big, gaping dent in your car. It's ugly. 

2.
I am sick and tired of explaining tampons to middle school boys. From now on I'm going to walk around with some Tampax instructions in my back pocket.

3.
When did it become okay to announce to your teacher that you needed to change your pad? I'm not at all shy about that stuff, but you better believe I never told that to a teacher.

4.
There is an odd squeaky sound that sound like it's coming from my wall. I blame Boston College.

5.
The dreams have started again. Grey, slouchy, suede boots with a simple, distressed buckle. Sleek, black riding boots. Maroon with a stacked heel. I don't know how much longer I'll be able to hold out. I want to buy boots so badly. I see them everywhere. I'm like a dude who stares at boobs, except I stare at boots. If I can just hold out until Black Friday and go to the outlets like last year... I need help. Rehab. Twelve steps.

Until I get a shoe rack, this is how I'll store my boots... And that's not even all of them. Like I said, I have a problem. 

6.
Lately I've been giving a lot of thought to remediation. In my experience, if a student fails seventh grade math, for example, it's usually not because he doesn't understand seventh grade math. It's because there are fourth grade math concepts he doesn't understand.


I know how easy it is to fall behind. I never failed, but I memorized formulas for the test and promptly forgot them later because I didn't know the reasoning behind the formulas. The older I got, the harder it became, because instead of a bank of mathematical reasoning, I had a bank of formulas I couldn't explain. The older I got, the more formulas I tried to keep straight, and the fewer I could remember with any kind of consistency. Even if you go for extra help, it's overwhelming, because you're afraid to ask questions because you know that everyone else mastered that concept two years ago and you've just been faking it. God knows I know how difficult it is to be the teacher in that situation. I can't tell you how many times I've started teaching sixth-grade level sentence structure to seventh graders only to find out they don't know what verbs are.

What I'm wondering is, what do we do? Here's what happens now: Student fails seventh grade math, most likely because he doesn't understand fourth and fifth and sixth grade math. He goes to summer school, where he is given seventh grade math, which he still doesn't understand, and no matter how fantastic the teachers are, there's only so much you can do with a seventh grader who doesn't know how to divide. In a perfect world, each kid would have individualized interventions based on specific learning needs, but that's a tall order. Do they make assessments that evaluate multiple levels (grade and complexity) of mathematical concepts? When would we give them? Who has the time to design that instruction? Who has the money to implement it with the student-teacher ratio it would require? I don't know. Certainly no districts I know.

Here's what happens: You get a group of students who fail subjects, go to summer school, don't fill in enough of the gaps, and get promoted to the next grade. If you could fail everything and still pass, wouldn't you? If you know you can get away with that, you do it, unless you have tons of intrinsic motivation. If you knew you could fail everything, get suspended on multiple occasions, and still pass to the next grade, why wouldn't you do that?

I know it's pointless to hold kids back. I've seen it happen many times, and I've never seen it work. Passing them up doesn't work. Holding them back doesn't work. So basically we're damned if we do or damned if we don't.

I don't know.

7.
My computer is a magnet.

8. 

I am so excited for Halloween it is ridiculous. I'm trying to figure out what amalgam of Khaleesi gear I'm going to wear. 

I'm thinking this will be my basic costume: 

But I want to add in the element of "I just walked out of a fire unscathed having mystically birthed three dragons, thus I am covered in soot." Any ideas? I don't want to make my entire apartment and all the guests a mess by rubbing off on them. I also can't go naked, like she is in this scene, because of societal constraints, which is why I'm combining the two costumes. 

9.
I'm still looking for a Khal Drogo.

Dear Selena Gomez

Dear Selena Gomez,

Your 50 Shades of Grey parody is hilarious. I knew it would be. For a rich, annoying little Disney star who says things like, "I don't work out, I'm just genetically blessed," you have decent comedic timing.

Sidenote: Never, ever say that again. First of all, your time will come. It happens to all the girls who could eat like horses without consequences. Second of all, you're dating the Biebs. Don't you have enough haters? Think about your safety, little one. 

Seriously though, what the hell were you thinking? Did you forget that your fan base consists largely of adolescents? Did it not occur to you that YOU making a parody would instantly bring this book series onto their mascara-smudged radar?

Until now, our students have remained ignorant to the smoldering ways of Christian Grey, and their ignorance has been our bliss. You see, Selena, few things are sacred in this media saturated society. Our kids can find anything on the internet. They are also often unsupervised, because their parents are working multiple jobs. Who can blame them? If it comes down to feeding your children and making sure they aren't traumatized by that scene from season two of True Blood where all the citizens of Bon Temp go apeshit and sodomize each other with various root vegetables, well... You have to feed your kid, as terrifying as that sounds.

Truthfully, it sucks. Nothing is off-limits. They read Perez Hilton. They watch dozens of R movies. Today, one of my seventh grade boys was wearing a shirt that said, "Fangtasia," and I didn't even have to play it cool because we've already had the conversation. You know the one: Yes, I'm a grown up. Yes, I have a life outside of school that involves shorts that are shorter than bermudas, and sometimes I watch TV shows and movies that I wouldn't use as reference points in class discussions. No, I will not comment on most areas of this life, because even though I teach you to write narrative, there are boundaries. Because the world sucks, this conversation was over and done with in October. I wish I'd never had to have it. Do you see why this is frustrating? I can't even have my way past creepy giant hot blonde Swede fictional vampire obsession to myself.

But Christian Grey? He fell in their blind spot. No one knew about his twitchy palm. And now they do.  Or they will. And that's your fault.

Maybe you can help me out. How do I answer their questions? Here is a list of things they might ask. If you would, please type out a grammatically flawless response, organized in paragraphs by main idea.

1. What is a twitchy palm?
2. Do my parents have a sex contract?
3. Is this at all related to the Rihanna song S&M?
4. What is a butt plug?
5. How do vibrators work?
6. What's an hard limit?
7. You can get a shot instead of taking a pill for birth control? What other kinds of birth control are there?
8. What are cable ties?

Please respond as soon as possible. I anticipate backlash from your impulsive decision will be immediate, widespread, and awkward.

Love,
Pissed Off Teacher

Excuses my students gave this week

Student: I was just dancing with my highlighter.
Me: That's my highlighter.
Student: Well we've become quite close.

***

I was looking at her photos on her binder of her hot boyfriend! You never said THAT was specifically against the rules.

***

I was demonstrating how odd it would be if people's torsos moved sideways when they laughed, instead of up and down.

***

NONONONONO We're not passing notes! We're rating the girls in the book on a  hotness scale of 1-10. I swear to God we're rereading the most descriptive parts.

***

I forget to pull my shirt down over my bum. Frankly I've just gotten used to feeling the breeze on my lower back.

***

That's not true. If he wasn't looking when I stole it, it doesn't count. That's a rule.

***

So what if I oinked? You KNOW you're just going to go tell all your boring grown-up friends about it.

--LW

Backstreet Boys, Book Club, That One Tough Student (of the day)

Today we had a discussion about the images that surround us in my 8th grade class. One student asked, "Miss, don't you have 200 posters of the Backstreet Boys?" These students have had me for two years, so they clearly know about my former obsession. I explained that now I only have one poster. "Why do you still have one?" they asked. I was honest. I told them that I have an old poster hanging in my study for days when I feel frustrated with teaching, to remind myself of what it was like to be thirteen, to keep myself humble. "Being 13 is easy," one girl said. ... Am I missing something? No... she's just lying...


***


S: Miss you like Cee lo? YOU'RE SO COOL. 
L: YES! I also love the Glee version. 
S: I take that back. This conversation never happened. 




***


Last period I have a 7th grade book club. Truly, they are wonderful. They're a brilliant, rowdy, mostly-male group and although they have their moments for the most part it's wonderful. Often, I make things worse actually. They are expected to read silently (except while writing or discussing) but they have so many questions, so many wonderful questions, questions that other, more structured classes don't have time to address. So what ends up happening is that I answer their questions, and one, two, nine of them chime in, and then we're all talking about the consumerism allegory in The Star-Bellied Sneetches instead of reading. Here are some of the conversations we've gotten into: 

1. Whether going to a low-income public high school or an applications-only regional vocational high school will look better on a college application. 
2. The detailed reasoning behind why they all take MCAS. 
3. The travesty that is the writing of the first three Harry Potter books. 
4. How the length of flashbacks in a novel can make or destroy it. 
5. How aggravating it is when authors create inauthentic teen characters and how easily you can tell, because it sounds like your 70-year-old next door neighbor who goes out once a month wrote it. 
6. The religious undertones in The Chronicles of Narnia

I love it. It's difficult to control them sometimes, but it's for the best reason possible. They get in shouting fights about books. 

Another reason this class is so fun is because by the end of the day, I get silly. Today, one student left for the library with a pass. 

Student A: Where's he going? 

Me: Narnia. 

Student A: Oh, okay. 

ten minutes later... 

Student A: Wait, what? 

***

Weight Watchers changed how they calculate their points. I am struggling to hold onto the fledgling grip I have on NOT getting obese. 

***

One of my students is having real trouble. She's new to the class, having been switched out of her homeroom due to bullying and drama (sometimes perpetrated by her). Today, I asked her to help another student and she didn't. I know she doesn't HAVE to help someone else, but she'd wasted three class periods refusing to take a writing test, and hadn't handed in the major assignment due 5 days ago. Then I caught her on photobotth (her desk partner's accommodations include a laptop). I snapped and wrote her up. She saw, became very upset, and tried to talk her way out of it. I ended up tearing up the referral for a couple of reasons: 

1. She explained earnestly that she was only using photo booth to check her hair (she said it so seriously, like, how dare I even conjure up the thought that she'd be taking silly pictures). I smiled. 
2. When I said, "I know something's going on with you, and that's why you're struggling with the writing prompt, but you have to give me something, some small thing I can do to help you," and she burst into tears. "I CAN'T TALK ABOUT IT," she gulped out. 

Some tiny, cynical part of me wondered if she was turning on the waterworks to guilt me. But I don't know her that well, so I realized I'd never know. Plus, how many times have you turned on the waterworks and then realized that you're actually upset? I've done that plenty. I guess there are a few things I really know for sure about this girl. 

1. Despite good and bad things she's done, things she's been caught for and things she's gotten away with, she is someone adults rarely listen to. When she gets to tell her side of the story, often the person listening has already made up his/her mind. 
2. She is a creative thinker that doesn't know she's a creative thinker because she hasn't been given or doesn't know she's been given creative freedom. 

I believed her. Plus, if she's just making it up to get out of work, the time and energy I'm spending trying to help her will make her feel so guilty that she'll turn it around anyway. I'm really good at that. 

I'm about to go make her what she called "A List of Nonthreatening Writing Ideas." Here's hoping that works. 

*** 

How awesome was Glee this week? 

*** 

xo