Monday, January 7, 2002
I hooked up with an old friend this weekend who told me that reading my stuff has made him laugh, so I thought I would continue to document things as they happen.

The first thing I noticed was that the hallways had been cleaned. However, they did not bother to clean any of the rooms, so it has the outward appearance of a clean space, but the inside of the classes are quite dirty. You would think they would clean the rooms that the kids are in, but that would probably make too much sense.

There is nothing like a major vacation and returning to work refreshed. This lasted about 6 hours until I hit a major wall around 2:30 this afternoon. I pretty much just coasted through the day until I was ready to take a nap. Unfortunately, this is not the right job for getting tired, because at the end of the day, you really need to be alert and keep your eyes on things. 2:30 is prime time for the kids to want to go home or just stop working and give up.

The kids have their midterm tests this week. I plan on giving them all of the questions beforehand and hope that they can figure out the answers. I gave out 45 extra credit packets before the break and only 1 was returned today. I can't say I'm too surprised, but then again, I'm sure these will be the same kids begging me for work down the road.

Somehow, coming back feels really different. I can't wait to become an administrator and be finished with the classroom responsibilities. There is one final thought that stayed with me during the entire break. Remember the bitchy warlord AP from Shitsville? It seems that she has a kid who attends Sunnyland. As I was leaving school the last day before the break I noticed a woman moving quickly past me with her head down. It was the vomit spitting demon! … She was trying to avoid me and rush past the security into the school. They stopped her wretched ass and told her that 'she knew the rules and would have to sign in like everyone else.' That bitch finally got a dose of her own medicine.

I read in the paper today that one of our kids saw his parents shoot each other over the holiday break. The suffering somehow never ends and continually makes me realize how important each moment is with each child.

Tuesday, January 8, 2002
Today I realized just how absurd 13 year old boys can be. At the start of the day, I entered the boys bathroom and noticed a number of rather crude drawings of hands firmly gripping a dick that is, for lack of better expression, oversized and unrealistic. Next to each of the drawings, the words, 'Mmmmm. It feel good' was written. Right above the urinals was the inscription 'suck my dick' with the word 'suck' scratched out and the word 'eat' inserted carefully in the phrase. As I approached my room, in front of my door, was an 8th grader rapping, 'Fuck all these bitches and knock all of these ho's.' This day was already shaping up to be a winner.

Kids in my homeroom entered with sour faces. They were not happy to be back to school after the long layoff and the return had finally set in.

I gave midterm essays today. I asked the kids to write about the most important current event of the year. One student replied, 'I really don't care about anything that don't happen in my neighborhood.' While it is refreshing to read honest and truthful prose, I'm not sure she scored very high on the exam.

Friday, January 11, 2002
The day was quite an eventful one. I got an opportunity to shadow the AP's for a day and got an eyeful of experience. One girl was caught selling Hot Cheetos in class and was taken to the office. She had a bag with like 58 bags of chips inside, a virtual goldmine to this young 6th grader. She got sent home for 5 days.

Another kid had was referred to the office for hitting, cursing, and calling another girl a skank. Without even addressing the first two claims, he says, "I didn't call her a skank."

Finally, a little girl was referred to the office for saying she 'didn't give a fuck' to the teacher. She was sent to the counselor for a brief sit down. This counselor is known for his colorful language, which makes it all the more ironic. When I asked the counselor what he said to her, he replied, 'we don't tolerate that fucking language around here, ya' fucking idiot.' Laughing hysterically, I giggled my way out of the office to pick up my kids from lunch. It was a magical day.

Wednesday, January 16, 2002
A child indicated, during homeroom, that he had to 'drain the lizard.' I replied that I did not know that he had a lizard. The day was gonna get stranger…And it did.

They had an extra sub, so I went down to be the AP for the day. There was a stack of referrals on the desk and I was told to deal with them according to school policy. At first, I really didn't know which forms had to be filled out, but once I got the hang of it, I was able to deal with a bunch of discipline problems.

Overall, two kids were sent home for fighting, and the rest were sent to In-School suspension for breaking a bunch of school rules. Three kids that I teach were sent to the office and were laughing when they saw me in the office. They started to tell me to just let them go back to class. One student told the teacher to fuck off, another lied and gave the sub a false name when they were in trouble, and another called a teacher a 'bald-headed freak.' I actually bargained with these students to let them determine their own punishment. They chose 3 days of In-School suspension. They weren't too happy when I agreed.

One girl cried her eyes out when busted for selling candy at school. When I called her mother to let her know that we had confiscated a few bags of chips, the mother told me that she couldn't come in for a few weeks to get the bags of chips, and was pretty worried about it. When I told her that it was just a few bags of chips, she still insisted on coming in to pick it up. I realized that the kid was probably selling the chips to support her mother, and I kind of felt bad.

Overall, I enjoyed doing the administrative thing and look forward to getting out of the classroom. I didn't really dig suspending kids, but I think I was pretty lenient in my punishments.