|
| this was my day:
midnight to 1--still up, because i was too high on human interaction to fall asleep.
1 to 5:30--sleeping
5:30-6:10--drifting
6:10-6:40--getting read for work (i'm SO AMAZED at how fast i can do that now!)
7-12--work (finals week... short days)
12-1--hanging out with my para
1-2--hanging out with GSA kids who showed up at my room
3-9--chilling at a goofy hole-in-the-wall sports bar with various awesome people
and now... now it's 10, and i'm already coming down from my buzz and eating stuffing. an it's SO GOOD!!!!! and then i'll cuddle my girl.
today, in my opinion, was a good day. simple and good.
| | |
| dude. i missed rock show. that sucks.
but barring any more car incidents (we flew off the side of I-75 on the way back from Cincinnati and decided, after the car was extracted from the ditch, to stay where we are for the night), i should be in toledo with my girlfriend from tomorrow through the 30th.
| | |
| i've been in an amazing mood since saturday.
good people on saturday made the weekend amazing. my kiddos and more good company have made the week amazing. soon i will see toledo people which will make everything amazing. sometimes i don't even know how to handle how full of good things i feel.
| | |
| my friends are wonderful and make me feel all warm and fuzzy inside.
my girlfriend is supportive and tolerant and loving.
my apartment is spacious and full of fun things.
my job is challenging and rewarding.
my students are beautiful young people who make me feel hopeful.
i think i'm pretty much set.
| | |
| today was amazing. yesterday was not. let us proceed chronologically.
the necessary back-stories...
1) my department chair recently initiated a club for the special education students to get them more involved in social events and to organize field trips since they often miss out on those planned by regular ed groups. i jumped on the bandwagon from the start, and yesterday went with them to a field trip to the museum of tolerance in LA.
2) i've also become active with the high school's gsa. this weekend about half a dozen of the members attended a leadership camp hosted by a non-school-affiliated nonprofit community organization that serves our local GLBTQ youth. they left yesterday after school. i was aware of the camp as well and went today to the advisor workshop portion of it.
Yesterday.
yesterday made me wish i had never set foot in a high school. as i was getting ready to board the schoolbus full of loud, obnoxious students for the two hour ride to la, the principal's secretary came running out to tell me that the principal wanted me in her office IMMEDIATELY. i asked why, and she said she had no idea but that a kid's parents had just busted into her office in the middle of a meeting. i went in and found one of the students from the gsa with his parents and brother, and the principal started interrogating me regarding "some overnight that the gsa was having". apparently, this student (who is 18 and a royal pain in my ass) had failed to tell his parents ANYTHING about the camp, signed his own permission form because he's 18, and was just going to go. obviously his parents got suspicious when he went to leave for school with a sleeping bag, and started questioning him... and apparently instead of telling them something nice and simple like that it was a leadership camp run by a community youth center, he froze and told them that it was a school thing, and mentioned my name since i've been working with the gsa. parents wig out and pounce on the principal, principal logically freaks out and interrogates me, and i get to try save her face and mine while explaining the camp and the local organization all off the top of my head, and all without every mentioning the word gay. i was not fun, it was not easy, i wish i could knock the kid's head into a brick wall, and it was NOT a good start to the morning.
then, after the two hour bus ride to la, i got to go to the museum of tolerance, which is cool. or would have been, if the students' case carriers had respected the department head's request that they give permission slips only to students with positive behavior, attendance, and grade records. but no, no... some of the case carriers gave them to ALL their kids, because they didn't want to have to deal with them on the last day before thanksgiving break. so i didn't get to go on the awesome three hour tour of the museum of tolerance, no... i got to go through almost a third of it. after that, i got to sit in the lobby with an emotionally disturbed student who was being a jackass (he wasn't upset by the content of the museum... he was just a jackass) and a student who was vomiting. for two hours. then we got to sit on a bus for the ride back, not for the 1.5 hours it would take in normal traffic or the 2 it would take in iffy traffic, but for the 3.5 hours that it takes in midafternoon-friday-before-a-holiday traffic out of la, which is enough to make most kids who aren't already a pain in the ass a huge, huge, huge pain in the ass. by the time we got back, got everybody's rides sorted out (because we were an hour and a half late getting back), and i took the last student home (same student who'd been vomiting all day, didn't have a ride because the friend of her mother's who was supposed to pick her up had a heart attack), it was about 8. over 12 hours of trouble, problems, assholes, and sitting in uncomfortable seats. woohoo.
Today.
today more than made up for yesterday. some of the stuff from yesterday, i just needed to sleep off the annoyance factor... emotionally disturbed student misbehaving on a field trip? not shocking. a kid getting sick on a field trip after a long, bumpy bus ride? no surprise. traffic in la? field trips not going as planned? none of these things are a big deal, just annoying when put all together. the problem from before the field trip was still weighing on my mind though, particularly because i never got to talk to the principal separate from the parents before leaving on the field trip, so i had no way of gauging how mad she actually was and how much of her presentation was bluster on behalf of the parents.
today i drove up to the retreat center in the mountains where the camp was to attend the 10-3 advisor workshop. we walked over to the building the kids were working in to get tea before we started, and i walked in to see 6 of my kids participating in the end of an activity with 35 other queer high schoolers, all of whom were having an amazing time. their activity ended, and three of them ran over and hugged me, grinned, told me how much fun they were having and how excited they were that i was there too, and ran back to what they were doing. throughout the day, every time the advisors went back to the building for something, at least two of the kids did that. every time. when they do that on the high school campus, i get mildly concerned with the possible issues that can arise from high school students hugging teachers, but fuck it. in today's setting, in today's atmosphere, it was totally okay, and i could give them a quick hug back without feeling threatened.
the advisor group was little... there were only about 8 of us. we were little, and we were productive. we vented about stuff that only other gsa advisors would get, we gave each other ideas on what to do during meetings and for extra events, we networked, we planned out connections with the advisors whose schools were closest to ours, we reinforced each others' understanding of the legalities surrounding queer issues, and we talked about our kids. there was one other advisor in particular, named jocelyn, who i really connected with. she just approached everything--her gsa, her students and teaching, her administrators, getting workshops organized at her school--in a way that is very much synchronized with the way i believe things should be done. i'm really excited, because her school is close to mine and we're hoping to plan joint social events in the near future.
so yeah, the advisor thing was awesome. but in terms of making up for yesterday... that kid messed up. the manner in which he messed up may get me and the other advisor in trouble, even though we didn't really do anything wrong. we will have to work to make sure that that trouble doesn't trickle down to the level of the students. the advisor workshop didn't make up for that, but seeing those six kids at the camp did. they were exhillerated, they were learning about queer issues, they were correctly using terms like gender identity that they didn't really understand before, they were comforting and offering support to students who were less comfortable with their orientation and identity... it was awesome. they are six of our strongest leaders, and i know they'll take what they learn back for the other kids. i got to chat with them during some down time after lunch... they were having SO much fun, and were so pumped about meeting an extended community that they could identify with!
by the time i went to leave, around 4, i felt like those six being able to go to the camp will make it worth any problems i have with the administration as a result. it was between workshops for the kids, and i waved goodbye to the three who were inside when i took a mug i'd been using back up to the main hall. two of them ran over to give me quick goodbye hugs and ran back to what they were doing. the third one, an adorable, quiet, mild-mannered young man who gets frustrated with the gsa for not being politically active enough, walked over, waited til the other two went back to what they were doing, looked me in the eye, and said "ms smith, this is so great. thank you so much for helping to make it so we could come to this--it means a lot."
i kind of felt like i was stuck in a hallmark movie while i was driving down the windy road with the gorgeous mountain sunset a backdrop and that kid's voice stuck in my head. it was almost physically painful, how proud i felt of those students and how happy i am that they're there. i will do just about anything for those kids with that as my fuel... dealing with one cranky principal? no problem.
| | |
|
Lifetime