Bang.

Hmm. I don't really have anything to say today. I worked way too late. I'm mad because I found out another one of my friends has fewer than 20 students in her class and it looks like I'm going to have nearly 30. I'm going to lose my mind chasing around all those little kids. Just shoot me now, ok?

Various Annoyances

The first day at school was fantastic. I got a clean classroom which is really all I could ask. I have three computers, a color printer, and an enormous television. Seriously. I'm just gonna go hang out at school all the time. We get cable. Cable! In a third grade classroom? Yeah. Maybe I can watch some of the shows I like now. At the rate I'm going, I'm never going to get cable. I'm so broke, criminal charges should be brought against the school district. It's bad. I get paid next week and it's almost all already spent. After that I don't get paid again until the end of September. But that check...man, it's gonna be huge. I get half of my signing bonus plus $250 for supplies. It's neat that we get that supply money a month into the school year...


...That's the cool thing about school board decisions. They make no sense. It's almost like some kind of sick comical game that these disgustingly rich and wealthy, overwhelmingly white people play with the education system here. I spent several hours last Wednesday at a school board meeting. Generally, I really enjoy wasting my time, because it's fun. Sometimes I sit in staff meetings or training classes, and while it's boring, it's kind of fun because I figure out some way to occupy my mind, pass notes to my friends, or, on the rare occasion that the information being imparted is actually worthwhile, I learn something. This school board meeting, though, my God. It was so bad I couldn't even fantasize about being somewhere else. I think that they do all that parliamentary procedure crap to make it so boring and droll that no one will show up, so they can make decisions and when people get mad, they can say "well, you should have come to the board meetings!" It also helps that they schedule them when most parents are at work, meaning that only a precious few housewives [who probably can't come because they have other little kids at home to take care of] and people who happen to be off work in the middle of the afternoon will be able to come.

The saddest part was when the few parents and teachers who were there stood to speak, and it was just painfully obvious that the school board members and the superintendent didn't care at all what was being said. It made me furious.

Oh, I learned something else fantastic today. Former president Ronald Reagan, back when I was a little kid, signed a bill known as the "Double Dipper" into law. The basics of this are that if a person [say, ME] works for long enough in the for-profit sector to earn Social Security benefits upon retirement but also worked long enough in the non-profit sector [the vast majority of non-profit workers are public school employees] to earn benefits from a system such as TRS [Teacher Retirement System], their Social Security benefits are reduced by sixty percent.

You have got to be kidding me. If I earn my Social Security, I deserve to get those benefits upon retirement. If some other girl and I both started working at the same time, and paid into SS long enough to get our full retirement benefits, then we both quit working for the rest of our lives, and then started drawing our SS at the designated age [67 for me], we'd both get full benefits. But if she quit working and I started contributing to a system like TRS, a system that is totally separate from SS and in no way affects SS's fund pool, if I draw TRS benefits upon retirement, I'd lose sixty percent of my SS benefits. It just makes no sense at all. None. If you put more into your retirement fund, you should get more when you retire. The end.

Anyway, this archaic, stupid law has been slashed from the books in all but 14 states, one of which is, of course, Texas. We've been instructed to add to the mountain of more than 250,000 pieces of mail that's already been sent to Texas legislators asking them to pass bills SB1523 and HR2638 which would eliminate this problem.

Man, this job had better be as rewarding as everyone says it is, because it's seriously stressing me out already. And school hasn't even started yet.

No Themed Outfits!

Oh, city life. Today is my first day as a minion of the evil empire of the Dallas Independent School District. I just watched my first traffic report before work and, yeah, there's some sort of wreck between here [my apartment] and there [school].

I know there's going to be a lot of whispering and gossip and debate about the Edison Project, of which our school is a part. I plan to keep my trap shut and stay out of every conversation possible, save those that involve talking just to my already-established friends.

Yeah, right. I don't know that I'm ever able to keep my mouth closed, especially when it comes to something I feel strongly about. Anyway, I'm worried. I'm more scared of these catty teachers than I am of the kids, who I don't meet for another week. Anybody gives me trouble...I guess I'll just have to kick some apple-wearin' ass. God save the teachers and their deplorable wardrobes. And please don't ever let me fall into their ways.

99% + Girl Trauma

Ninety-nine percent is the grade I received on my big semester project in my English class. I just found this out about 20 minutes ago, and I'm so excited but have no one to tell, since it is almost 1:00 in the morning.

This project took all semester, and, upon completion, was about 1.5 inches tall when bound. The paper itself wasn't that long, but there was a lot of research involved and we had to provide copies of all our sources. And I got a 99! I only did one tiny thing wrong, and I know what it was (misspelled one word), so that means I did everything else right. This is exciting. I feel really confident right now, and I feel like all that work and bother was worth the trouble.

The best part is that now it is mathematically impossible for me to fail this class. If I don't show up for the final, I still pass. If I show up and make an F, I still get an A in the class. At the beginning of the semester I was terrified that I wouldn't even make it through the semester, and now I'm pretty much assured an A. This class is hard. We have tough reading assignments every night and quizzes every class period. At least ten of the original 40 or so people dropped. I'm just so happy about this grade.


In addition to the things I'm reading for school, I'm currently enjoying a book called Fast Girls by Emily White. It's about teenage cliques, and how every school has at least one girl that's labeled a slut.

Now that I'm looking at the likely possibility of being a middle school teacher within the next four months, I'm starting to think about what it was like when I was 13, scared, and teased by my classmates. Junior high was painful. I wasn't unattractive, unintelligent or unfriendly, and yet I still felt like the whole school, save my small group of friends, was against me, and that I was the most hideous creature to ever grace the halls of my smalltown junior high. I guess it's just part of being an adolescent, but I really wish that it didn't have to be this way for young girls [boys either, but being a girl I am more sensitive to their issues].

I want to seek out books, research, anything - anything that can help me understand why this happens, why girls are teased and tormented, and what I, as a teacher, can do to intervene and maybe stop some of it.

This idealized vision I have of reaching out to these underprivileged kids and making a difference in their lives is going to drive me crazy. I'm not satisfied with the notion that if I save just one, all the work will be worthwhile. I want to change the way a lot of these kids think, and maybe their parents too. I want them to see that it's ok to be smart, and that it's better in the long run to be nice to people.

I'm going to look back at this when I'm 35 and laugh at myself for having such lofty dreams, but I suppose sometimes you have to set your goals a little high to accomplish anything at all.

All I Need is the Air that I Breathe

School was a chore today. The end of the semester always gets to me. I needed to relax tonight, so I went on a really long walk.

The weather this time of year in Texas is better than the weather is anytime anywhere else in the world. It's so nice out the air even smells good. Little flowers seem to be blooming on every spare patch of land left in the state. Where these blossoms come from I do not know - it's almost like you go to bed one night and it's really cold, then you wake up the next day and it's gorgeous and there are flowers everywhere. Tonight I went out for about an hour and experienced the sublime heaven that is Texas in April.



I live in a neighborhood situated between the two parts of a golf course, with a country club/tennis complex near my street. My walk tonight took me through a large portion of the golf course, the part that runs along the main road leading out of the neighborhood.

It's very nice along the course; for about ten yards between the links and the street the grass is mowed and kept neat, but not manicured like the actual playing area. Wildflowers are allowed to grow freely, and rocky places are left rocky. This part of the state is mainly forestland, and much of the grand old trees that were here long before a developer decided to build a bunch of houses still exist on the perimeters of the neighborhood. It reminds me of a fortress - I feel one hundred percent safe walking through the streets here at any time of day or night, but I wouldn't dare step foot outside that wall of trees past sundown. An illusion, I suppose, designed to sell houses.

This evening the streets were especially crowded with golf carts, people and dogs. I walked much farther tonight than I usually do and saw up close, for the first time, just how pretty those few yards next to the golf course are. As I came to the end of my journey back home, I wanted to turn around and run back and forth through the trees, grass, flowers and dirt. It made me miss being a child, and made me want to be as healthy as I can for as long as I can so I can continue to experience Aprils in Texas for a very long time.

Maestra! Maestra!

Today was fairly interesting. I went to an elementary school to volunteer as a sub for the day. My assignment was a first grade bilingual/ESL class. Now, my knowledge of Spanish goes no further than two years I took back in fifth and sixth grade. Most of these kids' knowledge of English was minimal as well. Fortunately, there were a few kids who were fluent, and helped me out a lot. We did math, reading, writing, phys. ed. and computer class.

I have to say I was pleasantly surprised by how much I enjoyed working with these children. For the most part, they were polite and kind to me. Sort of makes the notion of teaching high school seem a little less desirable.

I'm mailing my application to DISD tomorrow, and should know in a few weeks if I will be hired. A friend who already works for DISD insists that I have nothing to worry about; most of the teachers there, he says, are not nearly as qualified as I am. We shall see.

Tomorrow

Tomorrow my mother and I are volunteering to be subs at this elementary school. One of the first grade teachers was killed in a car wreck over the weekend, and this dreadful little town doesn't have enough regular subs or parents to volunteer to cover the classes so this poor lady's friends can go to her funeral. So, they had to put a notice in the newspaper today that they desperately needed volunteers from the city to help watch the classes. I think this is so sad. Maybe this apathy on the part of parents (and students, really) is some of the reason why I've made this sudden change in career paths and am applying to teach in Dallas next year. I feel like something has to change in the education system here and the best way to change something is to go ahead and do what you can yourself.

Wish me luck. I'm sending the application in on Thursday.