so there.

=/

Older brother: He growls at you because he has a crush on you. That’s how 6 year olds deal with crushes. I still deal with crushes that way sometimes.

I have so much to be grateful for though. My students are very good for the most part (so far). 5th period is a huge class and has the potential to get very unruly. My pre-AP class is very chatty as well, but it least it’s intelligent chatty. I’ve got a class of 6 boys who think they can do what they want because it’s such a small group. And despite all that, the kids are great and I like them as people, which is not something I could say last year.

So here is the question of the week. When I tell them to work in partners or groups and talk, and I give them specific things to talk about, why don’t they do it? They are literally SO silent when I want them to talk. What gives?

On Friday I left school early to go on two home visits (I’m burning through the list much faster than last year!) and as I left I mentally handed this school year over to God. Giving things to God is part of my 12-step work (the 3rd step, to be exact) and I find that it really just saves my sanity. So far it’s proving true in this case as well.

So on Friday I was getting my desk organized and my things to be copied in order all that kind of stuff so that I could leave early and everything would be perfect and in its place on Monday. Then some people started bringing in all these brand new desks, which is pretty cool except that they said they could not remove the old desks. So they just started stacking the new ones on top of each other so they’d fit. Then another teacher came and tried to take half of my new desks. Call me OCD, but I didn’t want half new desks and half old ones, so this upset me. Especially because if she’d just be patient, they would bring ear new desks too. Then another teacher told me the copy machines were all broken. And then it was time to leave for my home visit.

So I said to God, “OK God. It’s all yours! I’m gonna stop trying to be in control of this.”

And then I didn’t really think much more about it for the weekend. I wrote my lesson plans and make a first day of school survey, and my dad offered to let me use his office to make copies which was awesome. I knew the classroom situation would probably be bad so I just didn’t think about it.

So today when I got to school, there were probably 50 desks in my room. Half old, half new. The old ones were in rows and the new ones were stacked on top of each other. Here is a visual aid of some (SOME!) of the chaos:

It might not look that bad but on the other side there is more chaos. Anyway this just kinda sucked because I’d worked really hard on arranging my room. And decorating it too, you just can’t tell because the only wall in this picture is the one where student work is going to go eventually.

So thanks to the fact that I’d already given my first day/week/month/semester over to the care of God, I was able to shrug this off. I was also able to shrug off the presence of three fairly large tables and the absense of my CD player, and the ambivalance of my principal regarding the absense of my CD player. Don’t worry, it showed up later.

Today we saw each class for 30 minutes instead of the regular 55 so that they could get fingerprinted from 1:30-3:30. But the fingerprinting thing broke. So I got my 6th and 7th period back for an hour each. I had nothing planned for this hour so we just kinda chilled. I like just chilling with them more than I like teaching them. Is that bad?

The other good news is that none of my horror story students from last year showed up today. The bad news is that they still have tomorrow and Wednesday before they’re dropped from the system. The weird news is that two of my classes have only 6 students in them. Could we not have combined these and given me another planning period?

Current Book(s): Motivational Interviewing by Miller and Rollnick. This baby cost me $50 but I will learn lot about substance abuse counseling, something I’m interested in pursuing.

Current Playlist: The new Punch Brothers album! I’m going to see them in Austin in September (I hope) and I wanna make sure I can sing along!

Current Shame-Inducing Guilty Pleasure: Staying in my pajamas all day. What up summer vacation!!

Current Drink: Peach Perfection from Jamba Juice.

Current Food: Popcorn. I’ve been sooooo lazy. So much for the summer goal of “cook a lot”.

Current Favorite Show: Duh, True Blood! I also just finished season 5 of Buffy the Vampire Slayer on DVD. Oh no, this is not a good pattern to have…

Current Wishlist: Chairs for my living room! If people had a place to sit, I could invite them over more.

Current Needs: To get organized.

Current Triumphs: Masterfully evaded a near run-in with a crazy ex. I don’t think I’ve ever moved so fast yet so stealthfully!

Current Bane(s) of my Existence: I existing bane-free at the moment.

Current Celebrity Crush: More like fictional character crush, but Eric from True Blood.

Current Indulgence: The dark chocolate coconot bars from Kashi. Yum!

Current Blessing: Summer vacation is such a blessing. Seriously. I know I complain about my job a lot, and rightfully so. It’s difficult. And as such God has seen it fit to bless us teachers with a summer vacation.

Current Outfit: Jeans (rolled up, thanks to the rain) and a shirt from Fossil. About to be pajamas.

Current Excitement: My volunteer position at a local alternative peer group/counseling program that works with teenagers with drug and alcohol addictions. I’m super excited about working with these teenagers and gaining experience in a potential new career.

Current Mood: Calm. Summer is good. I really can’t complain.

Current Link: Blogging Twilight. Whether you love or hate the book and film series, you will laugh out loud when you read this blogger’s take on the books as he (yes, HE) reads through them for the first time.

Unfortunately there’s not much to say right this second. It’s been summer for a while now, which is pretty rad. I’m not totally sold on being a teacher yet, but I am pretty sold on not working for 2 months and still getting paychecks. Are there other jobs that do this?

Some of you might know I have some pretty lofty goals for the summer, and one of them is to read the huge stack of books on the lttle table by my bed. There’s 22 books there, and so far I’ve only read one. I’m trying to balance books I want to read for my own pleasure, books I want to read because as an English teacher I feel that I ought to, and books to read (or re-read) because I am thinking about teaching them next year.

Don’t let the picture fool you. There’s another pile BEHIND this one.

So tell me: what books do you think I should teach next year? I’ll be teaching 10th grade English, regular and Pre-AP.

I’m already thinking about next year though. This summer I’ll be taking a pre-AP training course and reading a ton of YA literature as well as classics I seemed to have missed. I’ll also be daydreaming about deocrating my classroom in our brand new building. Here are some pictures:

See those whiteboards over the built-in shelving? They are hiding MORE shelving. Yesssss.

1. Make a headboard for my bed using these directions from Young House Love.
This is probably a first week of summer project, just because I’ll have to hunt down fabric I like.

2. Buy a rug.
Done! I got this one from Target.

3. Speaking of seeing things at Target, I am totally in love with these throw pillows.
Got ‘em! Got another one from Target too, but I can’t find a link at the moment.

4. Hang pictures!
Working on it. I need two more frames. One size I know Target has and the other one (6″ by 6″) I can’t find anywhere! Once they’re found, up they’ll go. Right over the sofa.

5. Spray paint the ceramic chihuahua white.
Done. Since he never got a post of his own, here he is:

6. Mod Podge my sunflower side table.
Bought Mod Podge and brushes. Need to buy some old, yellowed Bibles.

7. Paint and recover my Craiglist chair.
Need some summertime to do this.

8. Hang a mirror by the door.
Almost done… the mirror is purchasd (For $15 form Tuesday Morning!) and the place I want it hung is taped and it’s leaning there… I’m actually hanging it on Saturday.

9. Paint my bathroom blue!
I painted an accent wall in my living room instead. I’ll probably do the bathroom some weekend before school is out, but I’m nervous because it will be a LOT of taping.

10. Floating shelves.
I decided not to go with floating shelves above the sofa, but I do want one smallish one over my dining table. Thinking about painting that wall too though, so stay tuned for a picture and let me know what you think!

Other things I did:
Bought a new coffee table that fits the scale of my furniture better. Moved old coffee table to be a side table. Put a basket on top of that for my Snuggie. Bought a side table for the other side, too. Bought a bedside table for my room that I haven’t figured out how to put together yet. Bought a welcome mat.

New priorities:
Two chairs for the living room, since the only place to sit now is the couch. Buy a floor lamp with a shade I can change out if I want. Decide if I want to paint another wall in my living/dining room.

“What can I do for you?” I ask him.

“Hey miss, I was wondering if you know any psychiastrists you could tell me about.”

“A psychiatrist? Are you looking for someone to talk to your problems about, like a counselor? Or are you looking for medication? Usually you go to a therapist first and then if they think you need to, they refer you to a psychiatrist.”

“Well, you see… I’ve been hearing these voices for a while now. And lately, they’ve been telling me to do stuff. Like to harm myself or others. They tell me to kill my little three year old nieces, and I really don’t want to do that. I love them. I’m scared it’s ghosts or something. I really hope it’s psychological.”

“That’s really serious. I’m so glad you are looking for help. What if we go talk to the intervention specialist on my conference period? I bet he knows some good people you could talk to.”

“Alright miss. Thanks.”

I immediately e-mailed the intervention specialist, Mr. V, and told him we needed to meet with that students third period and that it was crucial. He agreed to meet. At the beginning of my conference period Mr. V and I chatted briefly about what the student told me. I told him I thought it was really important that he put any prior knowledge of the student out of his head and that he not bring up any discipline issues. Thankfully Mr. V agreed and called the student in. He told Mr. V the same story he told me, and now he’s getting help. The student won’t be back to school until he is cleared by a medical/psychiatric professional as safe to return.

Please pray for this student. He is on probation and swears that he is not using marijuana or bars anymore. He is displaying signs of schizophrenia which just makes my heart break for him. He’s got a troubled past but is so smart and really does have a good heart. I could see how scared he was that he might be compelled to harm someone or himself. I really hope that he gets the help he needs and that he is successful in life.