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.

The First One

I'm thinking that probably zero, maybe one or two people will read this aside from me, and the chances of someone I actually know laying eyes on it are even slimmer, so I can be honest. So if you are that one person of two - basically if you are not me and you are reading this - it's all true.

I don't really know how to start this. Jumping into some philosophical rant about anything just doesn't appeal to me right now. My life story is way too long to fit into this text box, and the day I had today was way too boring to even bother putting in it. But, I suppose that's a start, and I have to start somewhere.

Today I drove into town to go to work. I work full-time at a dry cleaning shop. I'm not too proud of the fact that this is what I'm doing at the age of 24, when my friends are all engineers and teachers and other important professions. I can't really figure out how I ended up here either. Three months ago I was the editor of a small but profitable newspaper in another city in Texas; I had lots of friends, and was going to get married. Then things happened and now I live with my parents and work at a dry cleaning shop.

It's so funny how things can just completely change so quickly. But I was talking about my day, not The Whole Year, so I'll get back to that.

So I drove in to town. I got to work, and my boss was in a fussy mood. The other girl that I work with, I'll call her the pregnant one because she is, she was getting fussed at as well. We were annoyed by this and had a nice time dissecting the fussy mood of the boss after she left this afternoon.

Customers were also rude to us today. I do not understand this about people. The last thing you should do if you are not pleased with some product or service is to yell at the person with whom you have direct contact at said product or service providing establishment. Do not yell at the dry cleaning counter girl, because she might accidentally mix your $2,000 custom-made coat in with the outerwear sent to a local charity group. Not that I would actually do this, but it did happen at the place where I work (before I started working there) and you'd be surprised at how little the laws do to protect dry cleaning customers.

The owner of this coat, who does have a receipt showing that he paid $1,876 for it in 1994, was shocked to learn that the $175 we offered him in restitution was not in fact "insulting" as he called it, but was the legal limit for what we had to pay him for losing his coat.

He's alright, and when he comes in once a week to see if we've found it yet he doesn't yell at us, and even gives us candies. But, his wife does yell at us (those are the most annoying kind of people - men/women who send their wives/husbands out to yell at people for them in some "if we don't get them one way, well get them another way!" sort of tag-team effort) and when they sent us a letter with the copy of the receipt, they enclosed one of those awful "Are You Prepared to Walk With Jesus?" pamphlets that religious zealots like to hand out. Yuck.

This was totally not about my day, but like I said, it was boring anyway. I'll try to stay on topic next time.