More Daisy dancing

Starry Plough, Berkeley, 4/3/11--the Gold Diggers

Letter to the Crazy Lady

At one of the middle schools I've been assigned to work at as a counselor, I was told to work in Room 40--the speech therapist's office. I work there on the day she isn't at school. It is the only room the school has available for me, they have said, and so I have no choice. Because she is A Crazy Lady, I am super careful not to move or touch anything, or when I have to, I put it back exactly the way I found it. I tiptoe around her damned room, but this has not stopped her from sending me Crazy Emails containing accusations such as (among other things) that I have touched her pencil sharpener, allowed students to sharpen their pencils in her sharpener (Eegads!), and used her computer (which is password-locked). She also complains that the thousands of chairs in her room have not been arranged in the exact same way she left them, which includes knowing which exact chairs go where (there are at least three different kinds of chairs and the Crazy Lady has precise ideas about which go where). Here is the response I sent her today, being very fed up.

Hi _________,

I am sorry about any trouble I have caused you. I am truly doing my best. I have never touched the computers or electric pencil sharpeners, and neither have the students. I have never moved or touched the desk.

You are right that I moved the chairs, because I have an eight-student group that comes in and needs to sit around the table. So I put the chairs around the table in the middle of the room. After the students leave, I tried to return the chairs, but because I had not made an exact count of how many chairs were originally around the table, it is possible I was off by one or two chairs. In other words, it's possible that one or two chairs were still around the table in the middle of the room, as opposed to around the table pushed against the right-hand wall.

I will do my best to ensure that the room remains in its original arrangement, but I think it is fair to say that there may be some small sign that I was there (such as one extra chair around the table in the middle of the room). Unless I take a photograph when I walk in, there may be some small discrepancy. Would you like me to bring a camera to work? I would rather not, because it gives me an extra thing to remember and I am lugging so many things with me already, but I will if you would like. Otherwise, these small signs of my presence will probably continue, and I do not want to be in a conflict with you.

The only other possibility is that the school finds another place for me to be, and they have already told me this is not possible. And the final possibility is that we can discontinue my presence at the school, which of course is the most extreme scenario and I would rather we don't come to that--but it is a possibility.

Please let me know what I can do, and again, I apologize for any inconvenience.

Facebook defriend-estation

Yesterday I got Facebook de-friended by a radical right-wing Republican. I hadn't written anything particularly political on Facebook--just mildly so-- but then a friend of mine wrote in with some stronger opinions, with which I agreed. Then my radical right-wing "friend" (he was a former neighbor of mine) wrote in yelling belligerently in all caps and telling my other (real) friend to move to Cuba. Oh dear, I thought. I don't want it to look like I won't tolerate difference of opinion on my Facebook page (I will, really), but I think I have to de-friend him now because he is being rude and below the belt and going too far. I always hate having to do something that will potentially offend someone, so it was with trembling fingers that I scrolled down my Friends page, looking for his name so I could defriend him. How relieved I was to discover that he had already defriended me! Relieved and a little bit... proud.

The semester is over

A lot of grading awaits, but classes are over. Final assignments will be turned in today. It's strange to think that this may--possibly--be my second to last college composition class. I certainly had some challenges and hard times this semester, but in general, I am leaving with a warmer and fuzzier feeling than usual. I know you could say it's because I realize this period of my life is ending, and maybe that's true. But I've also been giving a lot of thought to how I got through the semester, particularly with regard to some students I found challenging from day one. Even from the first day of class, they were talking and horsing around and wise-assing a bit, and I remember a feeling of dread as I walked away that day: oh no, this semester is going to be a disaster. I remember telling my husband that when I got home.

But it wasn't a disaster, not at all, and I managed to handle what I saw as a potential discipline problem in a way that never exploded. Of the four students I thought could be a big problem, two are coming back for my class next semester (with my whole-hearted approval) and one just sent me a nice note over email. I keep thinking how badly I would have handled the situation as a rookie teacher, and how proud I am that I managed to let these students know I needed them to behave differently without alienating them or making them turn against me and the class. I stayed in control, I didn't let them hijack the class or ruin it for the other students, but I also didn't ever yell, threaten, bully, try to have them removed, or even make them feel like I didn't want them there (I think). They remained in the class in good standing. I end the semester with a feeling of great fondness for my whole class, for these students as much as the others. I am so proud that I have it within me to handle this sort of thing now. It makes me think that, ironically, I am more suited and qualified to be a teacher than I ever was before in my life, right at the pivotal moment that I may be walking away from it.

Not that I'm thinking I don't want the change. I think I am just a little puzzled.

Deep Thoughts, by Jack Handey

1) In my recent Word Twist game with Melissa, we both found the Big Word. She found SISTER, and I found RESIST. Neither of us found the other one's word. Think about that for awhile.

2) Two nights ago I was telling my mom and Mark about a teacher-student conference I overheard some time back in which I thought the teacher wasn't giving the most useful critique. He was zooming in on a lot of grammar errors, but at the same time saying there were larger, "global" problems with the paper while not giving much guidance as to how to address them. (It's hard; I know.)

Suddenly my mom piped in, "That is exactly like this time when I was a girl and was fired from my job at the library because my boss thought my friend was wearing a clown suit! Really, though, my boss was just anti-Semitic."

But... IS it like that? In any way? This should really make you think. Deeply.

I think we worked something out

We have talked and come up with some ideas for getting along better. I think it's okay now. My feelings are all bruised, though. Sensitive me.

Ugh

Well, it looks like I might be taking a break from my family of origin for awhile... my mother is here and things are bad and I don't think I can continue this arrangement anymore (where she comes once a week and we pay her from our child care stipend USF gives us). The comments she made are definitely out of line; she told me she "doesn't understand why people in their thirties are so tired all the time" (that would be Mark and I) and that she feels as if all the hard work she does for us just "isn't paying off"--that she "isn't seeing any progress." Like we are some kind of charity she's invested her money in, but now she needs to reconsider her investment, given how little progress we've made! These criticisms were also embedded in other criticisms of me and the messiness of my house (which also plagues me, but I seem to have a hard time keeping up with it).

All these remarks were made pretty much within ten minutes of walking in the door. She arrived after having been away a week, and during that week all three of us have been sick. Nevertheless, we have still both gone to our jobs, graded papers, prepared classes, taken care of Daisy, cooked meals, done loads of laundry, and averaged 5 or 6 hours of sleep a night. But she can't understand why people in their 30s would be so tired.

I am starting to think that part of the problem (though it doesn't entirely explain the nastiness and ugliness of her remarks) is that we have this arrangment where we pay her. Hence, her role is truly unclear. Is she somehow our employee, so that when she's here we can expect her to take care of Daisy while we do other things? (Not things for pleasure, mind you-- I mean, catch up on laundry and dishes, run errands, and work on my schoolwork.) Or is she here more in the capacity of grandmother, someone who enjoys time with her grandchild and wants to be doing this, rather than doing it for earnings? It is all somewhat blurred and confusing. I think somehow that this confusion of roles might be making her nastiness more possible.