A Trip to the Nurse's Office...

I just stabbed myself in the foot with a pencil.  I was walking down the hall and accidentally kicked a pencil some kid left on the ground.  It was caried forward with on foot deep inside my other foot.  I am almost positive the lead broke off inside.  I limped my way into the nurse's office were she dug around for a while before putting a bandaid over it (I get the impression she could not see well).  There was alot of blood.  All of the kids in there with me seemed pretty impressed that teachers could bleed also.  Mt foot still really hurts and I am exhausted...Hopefully things will start looking up soon.

Will Weaver and other things

I got to eat lunch with Will Weaver today.  He is the author of several young adult novels and short stories.  He vivited our school and all of the English teachers were allowed an entire hour for lunch to eat with our guest.  I am not sure what was more exciting though...meeting a famous author or getting an entire hour for lunch!  I only wish I wasn't so incredibly tired today so I could have enjoyed his company more.  He was an interesting man. Today in his lecture he commented that writing is such a private thing that it is facinating to see it from the public side.  He enjoyed visiting schools because it allowed for him to really see how his private work impacts others. (Some of the kids even wrote thier own endings to his cliffhanger novels and were very excited to talk to Mr. Weaver about his books)  He also said that writing was a process and that while writing is a solitary thing, it takes a team to make a book.  Of course, scholars that we are, we know all of these things.  We know them perhaps a little too well though, in that we don't give them much thought anymore...or at least I don't.  In respect to my research paper (which is not much more than a series of very loose ideas at this point) I think it is important to remind myself of these three simple truths about writing.  #1 Writing is a private solitary thing...in other words, at the very heart of it, the ideas and the paper has to stem from within myself.  This is true whether the nature of the paper is personal or academic (or both in this case)  Sometimes I find myself searching through books and syllabuses and websites (which is necissary) while what I have been looking for was inside myself the entire time.  Sometimes I think I need to stop listening to the world and simlpy put pen to paper and see where it takes me.  #2. Process....revision...many drafts...enough said.  I think too often I have turned in papers that have not been refined enough.  This is going to be a focus for me in this project.  #3 It takes a team.  From my loving fiance who will drive all the way to corpus with me for company when we have shortened class, to Joanie's chocolate, to Ada's funny post reminding me spring break is almost here, to Dr. K's helpful comments and guidence...(and the list goes on) it really will take a team to keep me going, not only for the project, but for this class.  I am completely worn out at this point.  It will take a team not only to help me revise and refine my ideas for my paper, but to come out of this semester and school year okay.  Thank you Will Weaver, for reminding me of some basic writing concepts that I knew all along, and to my own unofficial team that keeps me going from day to day and assignment to assignment.

The principal's office...

       Yesturday I got called into the pricipal's office...It was a bad week all around really, but this just topped it off.  My students were assigned a famous African-American to research (we had just finished a book about the 1960's and racial relations).  The had a list of questions they had to answer via research about thier person.  For once, the kids were excited about what they were doing.  They each had someone different so they were very excited to tell someone about what they found out.  And then, the principal's office...Not just me either, but my two partners in crime, the other two sixth grade English teachers.  Apparently what we were doing was not "TAKS" test related. In other words, because it was not multiple choice, because the kids actually had to analyze articles and answer open ended  questions with thier research, because it resembled the real world a little more closely than it reseambled the state test, we got shut down mid-project.  It was somewhere in that office that I thought "What in the Fuck am I doing here?" I don't know who the idiots are that come up with all of this stupid shit for teachers to do everyday, like teach kids how to take a test with a b c d (Yes, life is just like that), but I know one thing for sure, they are not teachers. 
            This brings me to my second point in frustration.  There is alot of talk about teachers/education/budget cuts in the news lately.  Yes, lets cut salaries of teachers and cut positions so there are even more kids stuffed into classrooms.  Oh, and I saw on the news that the average teacher makes 55,0000 dollars a year.  Yeah, maybe if they have been teaching for twenty years.  I get about 36,000 a year.  My pay check after taxes is 2,400 $.  Rent and utilites are 1,000...food, gas, grad. school, oh, and all of the things I buy for my classroom and my kids out of my own paycheck...Yeah, I am making the big bucks.  And I don't even have kids.  Oh and there is was also something about how teachers get all of these great benifits.. Do I have health insurance? Yes, I pay 245.00 a month for it. Just for me.  My mom is a teacher and pays 600.00 a month for the family plan.  Great benefits...So now, if teachers don't get fired, they may get paid less. Awesome.  Nobody teaches for the money because the money sucks and the job is too hard.  Maybe if lawmakers and politicians would listen to the people who are in classrooms with kids everyday, the system would not be so broken...Oh, one more thing.  There was a comment that teaching is a part time job on one of the newscasts.  Again, I don't know where the hell those jobs are.  I am required to be on campus from 7:45 to 4:15.  I am teaching from 8:05 to 4:05 with 30 minute lunch...Then I go home with my stack of papers, tests, essays that my kids did that day and begin to grade.  It's a more than full time job.  And it sucks. 
       Anyways, this week has not been a fun one.  A week and a half until spring break.  I hope I can hold together until then.  I am doing everything I can to just keep my head above water...