Mountains

I broke down on Tuesday. Cried. Tons of kids saw me. I had the brutal realization that I am not a teacher. I feel like I'm not connected to many of them, don't have good procedures, and they're not learning. Also, I don't know how to plan, grade, or do really anything.



And to top it off, I had lost my rhymepad. Everything in it--from tattoo sketches, to rhymes from immediately post-Phyllis to now, to vacation details, to Scion quotes, gone. And for the last month, it had been keeping me sane.

Losing

Shit. We talked for the first time in about two weeks on Saturday, and I was happy during. Then I just cried. Saw her fam last night--took Adam with me--and it was great, but I felt ripped before I left, because I'm one of the ones who leaves now. Not that I wouldn't have to leave anyway, because I would have to be back in Phoenix to work, but it just reminded me that I'm not someone who stays anymore.

Survivable--but now I think I've lost my rhymebook. I've had it since the start of junior year, and now I don't have a clue where it is. I called Pinnacle people, checked with Fi and the roommates, and it's not in my car. I don't know if it worked its way out of my pocket somewhere somehow, or what. But I feel like I"m going to lose it--it's been my therapy, and it's got a year's worth of thoughts, and a month full of heavy rhyming effort. I need to find it. I don't know what I'll do otherwise.

Changes

A musing on whether we can split our personality and still maintain it (coming).
In other words, is the fact that I spend most of my day being uptight going to change my personality--can I keep it up? I spend my whole day being strict, and it means that by the time I get home I have to sit and scratch myself for a non-stop half hour just to make up for lost time.

The Ballad of J Tree

A long-ass rhyme that will be coming.

Labor Day Weekend

Coming soon - a weekend in Joshua Tree, and the making of friends.

Warpath

Last Tuesday, Mr. B was not having it. Your parents won't pick up the phone? Phone disconnected? Your behavior atrocious? I was sufficiently aggravated after school that, after making several phone calls home, I stopped by the houses of a few children. At the first house, several other kids went rolling by on bikes while I stood in the middle of the street with my behavior tracker and gradebook, breaking it down for one particular girl's father. The looks on their faces made it worthwhile; one kid almost crashed, and another asked in a slightly petrified voice, "Are you coming to my house?"

To which I calmly replied, "Are you going to start listening in my class?"

And the pack of kids all tore out of there on their bikes, presuambly to beg their parents to go out for dinner that night. That definitely gave me some cred with the other kids.

I went back to the school, made more phone calls, and worked on lesson planning. I went to make one last phone call, and realized this particular child had given me a wrong number. This annoyed me enough that I looked up her address, threw my things in the car, and drove the few hundred feet to her house. Try and dupe Mr. B when you live on the same block? Bad call.

I've also started stacking up kids for lunch detention for weeks.

And I think it's paying dividends--yesterday, 7 of my 8 classes ran like clockwork. It was damn nice. The lesson helped, but so did the pacification of several upstarts. It didn't hit me until lunch--I hadn't written anyone up! Go me :-)

Thanks, Pandora

Sunday night was one of the best, soul-healing conversations in my life. Last night was rougher. Do you move on? What happens now? I don't know--I was going to write some stuff later, but I was sitting here and Everything Changes came up on Pandora. Trying to tell me something? I hope not, but maybe I do--so I can breathe sometime again. Either way, this song is not the best for my headspace. I'm going to sit and rhyme during homeroom; this chorus is stuck in my head:

It was so beautiful
Remember how in love we were?
So in love.
So in love.
Once.
So in love.
Once.

Everyone’s got stories gone
About a love we once knew
So high in the beginning
Until the world cuts through
And then everything changes
Nothing feels the same
Piece by piece it falls apart until
All that’s left is blame

That’s right, baby
Next life time
Yeah, ain’t that what they say?
Check it out
Love don’t hate
I got love for you
Always