The First Days

So--I'm three days into teaching at my "real" job. Holy shit--I have, as of 8:30 p.m. today when I finally left school, 240 kids. I'm teaching every writing to every 7th and 8th grader in the school. When I step back and think, it's like an assembly line; I have 8 39 minute classes, with between 25 and 37 students in each class. In the mix, though, it's a blast. Whether it's one of my two classes of angelic 7th graders--who have dubbed themselves the Exit Crew and the Quest Crew in another, for you dance show fans out there--or one of my classes of 8th graders for whom the simple issue of taking attendance is a 35 minute process, I feel like I'm making small steps with kids. I miss the quick connection I could have with a group of 17 at Institute, but I feel good about even the short lunchtime chats I have with kids.

I also notice how weird it is when I walk out on the playground to shoot some hoops or toss a b-ball with TeenWolf (a fellow BAT) and the whole place goes silent (What the eff are the teachers doing with a basketball?). But that's a wickedly amusing transgression of social norms. So is waving my arms and just exposing my massive pit stains today, to get the giggles out of the way. The AC was busted; my class was 84 degrees, and kids were literally washing their arms in the class sink.

I don't get mad, even when I spend the entire period disciplining kids--though I do feel bad for the smart kids who are now enraged that they've spent three days doing inane drills as I try to instill discipline, and the capacity to remain silent for a full sixty seconds in some of the other children. After all, how can you get mad when the kid saying "I hate you" is three feet tall? Or is nearly six, but is incapable of facial hair, driving a car, or buying a six-pack?

I left the school yesterday at 7:30, having gotten there at 7 am. I felt absurdly chipper for having spent over 12 hours at my job, with more to do at home. But hey--I forsook the gym (kind of a silly verb, given that you have to have a gym routine, or pass, before you can forsake the place), went to an open mic in an alley in Glendale, met several random people, and proceeded to spotwrite a rhyme about the necrophilia in famous Disney movies and drop it in front of the small crowd, all at my first open mic ever. While wearing my tie, khakis, and Frist Campus Center 99 cent shades. 'cause there's nobody weird like me.

Admittedly, I was a little beaten when I walked out of my classroom today. It was almost 9 p.m. I'd been at the building for 14 hours, and just spent another hour working. But in between, I hit another open mic--four blocks from my apartment--and shared a few beers with the roomies. And while working, I'd been rocking the shit out of Pandora over the classroom speakers, so I'd been pretty good then. It was just a downer to realize how dark it was outside when I opened my door, leaving the room where I'd been for most of a day. But that only lasted a few seconds. I hope this doesn't last forever; I'm hoping that after the first two weeks, once I have my organizational, behavioral, and grading systems in place, my life will get easier. I'll still be grading hundreds of pages every week, but I'll able to do them with a gallon of tequila next to my pool.

(Again, that sounds a bit depressing. That's not exactly a social life, but when 11 p.m. is staying up late, it sounds like the shit right now. Fuck you very much, party people. :-P I laughed last week when, before I started the job itself, and had only been dealing with training, a happy hour party broke up without going barhopping, but us teachers headed home circa 9. My big Saturday plans? Pizza, beer, and Juno with some other teachers. And after texting friends, that was a hell of a night--even the third year teachers at my school had apparently passed out after dinner. Yay teacher's nightlife!)

And not despite, but because of all this, I'm enjoying the shit out of it. I'm meeting lots of awesome kids, and my main emotion when I'm being self-analytical is that I'm being too harsh, or too aloof. I'm not being personal enough. It's not an excuse to say that there's 240 of them and one of me, because then I'm ont doing what I set out to do. But in the meantime, I get to spend eight classes a day doing improv theater with a social conscience.

And when I get down, I think about Cat-Eyes, fellow TFA at my school, who had a used condom thrown at him before lunch the first day. ("I thought it was a note. Then I picked it up, and it was definitely not a note.") Or Preschool Peyote, who sent me this on her first day: "I found out today that less than half of my class is potty trained. ...I think I may have to revise my big goals."

There's shit all over, and it's a party anyway. :-) I'm going to go collapse.