Apologies

It has been brought to my attention that one of my current 102 students has stumbled upon this personal blog of mine and was concerned with a statement which remarked that I feel inadequate with certain areas of my life right now, including my 102 class. This discovery was in part my fault. For whatever reason, my computer defaults a section for blog comments with this website, which it did on the blog for my 102 class. I try diligently to erase it each time I post, but sometimes I forget. Well, I forgot once or twice.

Regardless of the fact that I feel as though this was an inappropriate boundary to breach in a student/teacher relationship where I value some personal distance, I recognize that my writings here are public and therefore accessible to anyone and for that cannot hold a grudge. Plus, it was my own fault for not watching my computer's lovely defaults better. I would like to apologize to that student - and any other student who read that post - for the misunderstanding that arose from reading that blog post. Yes, I did express concern with myself and my own responsibilities, but that post was hardly more than a personal, hyperbolic rant. I take it for granted, I think, that the majority of people who read this - about seven total in the world - are close friends and family members who speak to me on a steady basis and are privy to my propensity to vent negative bothers and exaggerate on my personal blog.

In actuality, I feel that my life is quite balanced between home, school, work, work, and work. One reason I perhaps feel that I don't give as much time to my 102 class as I should is because I don't give as much to it as I have in the past. This is because I wrote daily lesson plans and set course expectations during winter break this year rather than working on it throughout the semester, leaving for me only the task of adding to lessons or altering things along the way. This has proven to work rather successfully for me, and has helped me grow in the art of unit planning and coordination and has alleviated my constant time commitments in the copy room and late nights at my computer trying to come up with an idea of what to do next. Also, as I mentioned, I'm unable to return emails during the day and often either don't want to sit at a computer or have no time to sit at a computer in the evenings. I generally try to maintain a 24-hour return on emails, but this semester, admittedly, it has taken me longer - sometimes up to three days, which, although a disappointment to me at times, has not yet seemingly been a problem with my students. If it has, they have not voiced that, and since they also have my cell phone number, they have more than one venue for doing so.

And so, I apologize for having a rough time and feeling comfortable enough to put that mildly on public display. My heart is in fact in all that I do and I often find it mostly in my 102 students. I do honestly worry about neglecting them, but I am coming to learn that that's a general fear of many teachers. I look forward to every Saturday class this semester and helping welcome a classroom full of bright and interesting adults to the world of college writing. Working as a graduate assistant over the previous two years has increased my awareness like I had never imagined it could to the world of education, authorship and community connectedness. I fear that leaving it at the end of the semester will leave me with a certain void in my life that could never be filled with ninth graders. I value the college courses I teach for their openness, their willingness, their insight and, obviously, their lack of behavioral concerns. They are a place where I can share, intellectualize and challenge in a way that I can't in other avenues of my life. I view my 102 class this semester, in particular, nostalgically for that reason: it will be my last. I think it is this reason as well that drives me to succeed with them, to help them more than I've helped the others, to do more than a superhuman teacher could do. But alas, since I am not superhuman, I must live with what I am capable of: one day a week, pre-planned lessons, sometimes late emails, and all the gusto I can gather.

Scene: The Boulevard Bar

Scene opens upon a dark, smokey bar. People play pool wearing jeans and tee shirts or flannel. Other people linger at the bar making large movements and talking and laughing overtly. The juke box plays loudly from the corner. Enter Me and K for my aunt's birthday celebration.

After sitting for a while at my aunt's table, I decide I would like water and offer to buy the birthday girl a drink. I stand and walk toward the bar. I aim for a section of the bar with three open barstools near the end of the bar. I lean forward on the bar and wait for the bartender. A middle-aged and severely drunk man two barstools over addresses me.

MAN: Are you married?
ME: Excuse me? It's difficult to hear over the noise of the place.
MAN: Are you married?
ME: Yes. looking back at the bartender
MAN: I rarely do married women.
ME: shocked and a little apalledOh!looking back at the bartender
MAN: laughing and embarrassed I'm sorry, that didn't come out right.
ME: wanting to exit the conversation and still be polite That's...all right. I know what you meant and...I'll just...take it as a...compliment. looking back at the bartender
MAN: My name's Doyal. D-O-Y-A-L.
ME: Nice to meet you Doyal. looking back at the bartender
MAN: reassuringly serious I would do you in a second, though, if you weren't married.
ME: again shocked That's...nice. looking back at the bartender
MAN: Are you sure you're married?
ME: Yup, I'm sure.
MAN: I just thought I would check.
ME: nod

Upon the scene enters the bartender. I am finally able to order my water and cocktail and leave the creepy man.

OMG

There's nothing at all in the whole world like coming home, exhausted, on a Friday, sitting down to check out what's been happening in Internetland, and finding a riotous display of humor on the comments section on my blog. Absolutely nothing else like it anywhere...

One thing quickly about women's pants. I hate the fact that men can buy pants in a waist size AND length. As a woman, you can buy a 0,2,4,6,8...you get it. And the length of all those pants sizes is roughly the same: about an inch longer than necessary to fit my legs. NOT all of us are built at 5'6"-5'8". Some of us fall about an inch short of that - and our legs are to blame. Never, in a million years, will my leg length change. Yet, I will forever be rehemming all the pants I purchase. Thank goodness I have a grandmother with a sewing machine and lots of spare time.

Sometimes, I would just rather play video games.

Well, I'm getting the feel finally for working full time. What I have determined thus far is that I do not like waking up every day at 6:30. I would much rather wake up an hour and a half later. However, I can't work an eight-hour day and still be home around three in the afternoon if I sleep until eight every morning. Bah.

I discovered today that I'm making about $10 an hour. I'm substitute teaching for my cooperating teacher, see, and making $75 a day for it. If I'm there at eight and leave by three, that's about $10.71 an hour. However, my days fluctuate - and I'm always there before eight and usually stay at least a few minutes after three. How do I feel about that? I don't like it. Teaching is harder than working at the shelter. More planning and thinking goes into the job, plus, I'm actively shaping their minds every single day, filling them with knowledge about racism and judgement and other complicated issues (we're reading To Kill a Mockingbird). At the shelter, I have time to do crossword puzzles sometimes or spend time alone in the kitchen when I'm making dinner or washing dishes. At the shelter, I take kids to the movies, hot springing, or hiking and will often watch TV with them or work on puzzles with them in the living room. All I have to do there is be fun yet uphold rules and set a good example. Yet at the shelter - even though it's in the social work field - I make $2 per hour more. Somehow, that doesn't match up to me.

Incidentally, I discovered that I made more last year than almost all of my previous working years combined. That's only an estimate, but it may be very, very true. And I'm still in graduate school! People in graduate school aren't supposed to make lots and lots of money! Not that $18,000 is a lot of money, but I suppose when you're in fields as lucrative as mine, you don't have a lot of complaining room.