Today a kid came up to me after school and asked me if he could ask me a personal question. I made sure it wasn't going to be some weird thing - "Mr. B, are you a virgin?", which is a question I was asked the second day of school - and believed him when he said otherwise. His face was really sad too, and JCarb was usually grinning in the back of class sleepily. He asked me "Mr. B, have you ever gone to juvie?"

"...No, but..."

"-cause I have."

"Oh."

"Can I ask you another question?"

"Have you ever gone to jail?"

"JCarb, are you going to jail?"

"No, but have you?" His face lit up for a second - at the idea, perhaps.

"No" - and I talked to him for a few minutes, and he seemed to beating around the bush, but I had no idea at what. I just asked him point - blank: "JCarb, why do you want to know?"

He just got sad and began to walk away. "I just wanted to know if you guys make mistakes, too."

***
This was to end a day that started with two 7th graders, AdSanch and MarieCarra, came to me to apologize for the way they'd acted the day before. They'd said they'd been really stressed, angry, and depressed lately, and when I asked them why, they said one of their friends from their old school had just died.

****
I also had a whole class get legitimately pissed when I said I might not be there for a day, in the context of telling them that they needed to respect the sub. I think, though, that that was just because I let them eat lots of food on early Fridays, moreso than because they like me.

I need to write more of this shit down - I hear these stories everyday, and I almost just let them flow by now, it seems so normal. And now that I have a laptop (netbook) again, I oughta be. Whee!