What I Did During 2006 - New Orleans

This trip was for work, and just a few months after Hurricane Katrina and the floods (you can still see that quite a lot of the buildings were still boarded up at this point). The city was so different from how I remembered it from my last trip. What a place...

What I Did During 2006 - Puerto Rico

During 2006, I worked and I traveled. That's really about it. I'll post some photos from various trips, starting with Puerto Rico.

Puerto Rico - visited the main island, Culebra, and Vieques with an old friend from my teaching days. Swimming in the Bioluminescent Bay in Vieques is likely the coolest thing I have ever done in my life.

First picture is some cool art in Vieques. Next, no lie, a Cock Fighting arena. Can't believe that this is legal. PR is, after all, part of the US, right? Clearly I was not the only surprised by this unique...family business in the third photo. Look at the people craning their heads around on the right. Next picture is of a fabulous beach in Culebra. Finally, the sodas building - I always love good graphic design.

The First Day of School

And I'm not there! I called my friend who is still teaching on Monday, and she didn't even say hello - just, "Hit by a truck. Hit by a truck."

I remember that feeling - being so exhausted at the end of the day that you don't have energy to breathe, much less have a life. Now, I go to work, come home, and have time to do things. I've gotten in touch with so many friends that I'd neglected for the years I was teaching. Granted, I had a lot of great friends and sweet kids at school, but I really let some people slip out of my life, and it always made me sad.

I'm going to New York City for my job this weekend. I'm actually excited about what I do and enjoy my work. It's so completely different from how I felt when I was teaching. It's weird to have a job where I don't need a union to protect me. It's really weird to be able to order office supplies whenever I need them. And the traveling? The closest thing I ever got to travel when I was a teacher invloved going to Seagoville, TX, and if you've ever been there, you know it's definitely not a vacation.

I still have nightmares about teaching. Every night this week I've dreamed about it - probably from talking to Sarah about the first day and what a drag it is. I keep dreaming about running late to school and having no lesson plans. Hmm.

Reason #439 Why I Quit My Job

I just thought it was over. The District is still doing their damnedest to make my life miserable:

May 2002 - May 2005: Worked full-time as a teacher in the Dallas Independent School District, with a contract stating that I would be paid each month, once, on dates that were set during the summer of 2004.

Wednesday, June 15, 2005: Wake up and check the bank account, expecting to see a nice, fat (well, maybe not fat but at least not scrawny) balance, and instead see the paltry sum that had been there the night before. Perplexed, I call the District payroll department to find out what's up, since I've had direct deposit for the entire three years I've worked at my school.

Am told that there is "some problem" with my check, and I won't be able to get it today. Ask for a paper check to be printed immediately, since I'm leaving town to visit my sick grandmother, and won't be able to wait around until tomorrow. Am told that there is absolutely no way a paper check will be printed; they never print them under any circumstances anymore, and I will have to wait until Friday when the money will be in my account. Call the Union, which is not helpful at all.

Friday, June 17, 2005: Still no money. Call the payroll department again, am first told that the check has processed and should be in my account, then am told that a paper check has been printed. Funny, right, since they don't ever print them? I am two hours away at sick grandmother's bedside, so I arrange for a friend to pick the check up. Payroll lady says my friend can come between 4:00 and 5:00 p.m. to pick up my check.

Friend shows up, along with the dozen or so other people who have not received their checks either, at 4:00 to get the check. Gets told to wait. Calls me; I call the payroll lady again (by now it's 5:00) and am told that the check will not be ready - I will have to wait, now, until Monday. Get really angry and take it out on the payroll lady, who deserves it since this was her fault, and because she won't just accept responsibility and take care of the situation. When a person only gets paid once a month, it is imperative that the paycheck arrive on time.

Without my knowledge, my friend also takes out frustrations on my behalf by asking payroll lady a series of questions including "How would you feel if you didn't get paid?"

Saturday and Sunday: Spend the weekend broke.

Monday, June 20: Wake up and call payroll. Hear: "No, your check is not ready. No, we don't know when it will be ready." Tell payroll fool that this is not acceptable, and ask to speak to someone else. Finally get in touch with treasurer lady, (I'd draw a heart around her name if I could) who finds my check and gives it to me, along with the contact info for the head of the Payroll Department, when I arrive at the District headquarters building half an hour later.

My main complaint isn't even that they basically lost my check, it's that they never gave me a reason why the mix up happened. What if I had kids to feed, or a parent who needed medicine, or was going to leave on vacation on Friday? These people were truly inconsiderate to me, and I plan to demand answers from the Payroll director.

And then...

...Just when I'd started to get over the whole thing, two of my students just called me.

Who knew they actually liked me? I don't remember ever looking up my teachers once school was over and calling them up. Oh wait, I e-mail with some of my old teachers on a regular basis...

Anyway, sweet, right? It's fine, but I gotta say, it's pretty boring talking to a couple of 12-year-olds on the phone. I remember loving the phone when I was little, and now I try to get off the phone ASAP, no matter who it is.

No More Schoolbooks

I literally never have to enter a school again for the rest of my life if I choose not to do so.

I've been out for two weeks now - two glorious weeks of not thinking about grade books detention TAKS TEKS thugteenagers administration etc...

In these two weeks, I've been pretty lazy. However, I went to the Bahamas again and I got a new job. First job I applied for, first interview I went on, and I got it. Anything else, any other job, would have been a letdown, so I'm pretty happy.

Not going to write about work anymore, though. Now that I'm not fighting the good fight at an inner-city school anymore, work-related writing is over for me.

I haven't started my new job yet, but I can already tell that it's going to be much, much better than what I was doing, so this site can return to it's original purpose - something fun for me. I never intended to make these pages a vent fest about a frustrating job, but for the last three years work has been all I've been able to think about.

No more! Bring on the world of grown-up fun, happy hour and highway commutes.

Countdown ON

I'm down to counting the hours. Currently, there are 49 hours left in the school year.

My friend, in his infinite generosity, decided to lend me his spare flat screen TV to take to school. This combined with the extra DVD player I have under my bed means that all my problems at school are solved. I have about ten hours worth of history films at school, and the Back to the Future trilogy that I also borrowed from my friend. The children will be quiet at last!

All I think about all the time is getting out of here. I have three months left on my lease, and to be honest I still haven't decided what I'll do once it's up. I really need to stay here until the end of October, because I'm in my friend's wedding. Still need to buy that dress, too.

It's really interesting how I keep meeting people who are opening my eyes to all that's out there to see. Until about five years ago, I never thought about traveling outside of North America and Europe. Small-minded, sure, but when you grow up in a small town in Texas, you just don't really think you'll ever get that far away. It doesn't help, either, to be raised in a family that just doesn't travel much. I come from a Texas ranching family that's been here for a long time. Work is valued above everything else, and travel is a luxury that my family just doesn't think about. That all changed a few years ago though, when my mom and step dad got married. He has really taught us how to travel and made us want to see more of the world. 

--

I really can't believe my teaching career is almost over. Ninety percent of the people that I know today I either met through my job or only know me as a teacher. I've never really thought of myself as a teacher, and knew it wouldn't be a career for me, so it's strange to think of people seeing me that way. This website has been mainly about my teaching job for the last three years. I kept trying to write about something else, but when the problems as big as those in an inner city school occupy your mind, there's not room for much else. Besides, I certainly needed to get all of that out.

Honestly much of this year I haven't wanted to document. Some highlights:

1) Having a conversation with four 12 and 13-year-old girls that began with, "Miss, you know how there's two different kinds of head on a boy?"

2) Being yelled at and cursed in three languages by teenagers.

3) Knowing that you're being looked at in a nasty way by students...they're way obvious about it and it's so gross.

4) Finding one of your books with such vulgarity about yourself written on it that you don't care to post the details on your website.

5) Catching six boys throwing rocks at your car, and trying to break into it so they can steal/destroy the soccer ball hanging from your rear view mirror, because they don't like that team.

6) Having a student go to jail for throwing a skateboard through a windshield, and having this same student make jokes about how you're going to get a broken window in your car...

7) Um...yeah...every day was awful times a thousand and all the highlights are the same. There were a few sweet kids who made it almost tolerable. I'll never forget the amazing group of kids who would help me out even when everyone else was being awful to me.

It's not just me either...everyone else from my grade level has quit as well...the administration drove us all away with their lack of support and disregard for the problems that come with teaching this age group.

But hey, it's almost over, right? Then it's off to play at the beach in the Bahamas, then back here to figure out the next couple of years.