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Ugh.

I just felt the need to inform you both that I just wrote a 12 PAGE PAPER...in a 100-level class! An entire synopsis on the final week of Jesus' life...interesting topic...but, seriously?! I wrote one 10-page paper in college...ONE...in a 300-level coaching class (no bibliography). I had to write in APA style (a.k.a. hell) with an ANNOTATED BIBLIOGRAPHY. It took me EIGHT HOURS! Okay, I think I just highlighted the main points. Sorry, I needed to complain to someone and my dog is the only one listening.

I haven't graded a darn thing...

I don't want the weekend to end...

I have 10 papers left to grade...praise God! One more essay to write, which I have spent the last hour outlining. School is kicking my ass right now. I feel like my teachers just decided to kick it up a notch since I'm officially in week 4...over halfway through my first two classes (and $5000 in debt). Pretty cool, huh? Plus...I have yet to receive a paycheck. We get paid on the last day of the month...Monday cannot get here soon enough.

Anyway, I don't know what else to say. I went on a 10-mile hike today with my dogs. It was lovely...I forced myself to get out of the house and step away from school stuff (if there's one thing I learned in the first two years it's that not taking a break may seem beneficial, but it will kill us in the end). It was beautiful...and no sprained ankles this time. My dogs were ecstatic.

Ummm...Jordan is still totally retarded. We're still talking everyday...not that my love life (or lack their of) really excites either of you anymore. Who knows. I did get the phone number from my high school friend in Seattle. We dated my freshman year when we was a junior...ha. We're going to try and get together in two weeks (since I'm chaperoning Homecoming next week...double ha). We've been talking like everyday for the last two weeks though...weird. Do you think that you ever completely lose feelings for someone you cared about? And are you still into the person that they were, or they person that they are? Or maybe it's both...and that's the beauty of it? I just need to see a familiar face. Plus, he is honestly one of the funniest people I know (after you two peaches, of course). Weird. I dunno. I don't even know what I'm saying, why I'm saying it, or if I'm even making sense. I'm an inferring something in this post? Brandon, you would know...you are now the king of reading strategies, I guess.

Okay, I have to sleep. My eyes are closing and I got church in the AM. Write back soon. Toodle-ooh!

Ugh...Grading....

So, it's been a while since I've posted. I really don't have much to say that you don't already know, but I feel like sharing. And, I feel like procrastinating. I don't want to grade papers, which is crazy, since I took the day off to do it and I've yet to look at one. Oh well. I digress.

Tomorrow is my first true professional development day at Cactus Shadows, and it looks about as boring as all of the others I've been to. First, I'm in a department meeting for 3 hours to talk about honors class, which I will never teach. I'm going to grade and I don't care what they say.
Then, in the afternoon, I'm supposed to go to a meeting to learn about something. Oh...how thrilling.

So, I'm officially behind. I have about 300 papers to grade this week, and I don't want to even look at them. I feel so lethargic. I think my allergies are worse here, seriously. Who would have thought in the desert, but they're bad. I also think that my asthma is getting worse. This morning I could barely catch my breath. It sucks. I'm going to have to go to the doctor, but it'll have to be when I get paid.

And...I have to officially become a member of the state of Arizona. Ugh. I hate it. I have to get my plates and a new drivers license that won't expire for 50 years. For real. (I'm pretty sure it's 50 years, it's crazy.) I'll be 74. You think my appearance might change? Whatever. It's going to cost a shit ton of money and we need Brandon's GI Bill in order to pay for it, which you never know when it's coming, but I need it by the 30th. How cool is that. Anyway, life is crazy here. I keep finding bugs in my apartment and I'm having it sprayed on Tuesday. Oh...the joy of the desert.

One other interesting thing:

Not that you guys are reading any of this. Pbbblt.

Last night the principal held a mediation between one of the night teachers and his students. The guy had a class from hell, and the Principal actually held a mediation. That's cool, and a little intimidating, because we're a charter school. If the students don't like the teachers, they leave, and we eat pork and beans. If this mediation doesn't work out, that teacher is likely to be the one gone . . .

Two thing/ks

I haven't had a professional eval yet this year, but there is an instructional coach in the district, and I kinda like her, so I asked her to sit in on what I thought was going to be a really cool class. This jinxed it, I guess, because they were MONSTERS! I didn't get shit done, and I was mortified. I was certain she thought I was the worst teacher in the world. We talked the usual teacher speak about reflecting o n the lesson and what to different next time, but I was just convinced inmy mind that I was shit for teacher, and I should go kill myself right now before this school also decides to fire me. BTW, I know you guys probably wonder where this inadequacy complex comes from? Probably from getting FIRED.

So I decide not to kill myself after eating my feelings a little. A lot. And I go to an inservice later in the week. Allfour campuses of this charter school meet once a month on a Friday for PD, and this week the theme was pre-reading strategies. Sarah, who witnessed me crash and burn, is conducting the PD, so I am reminded of the huge suck that is me, until I read the PD schedule for the year as it is passed out. I notice that next month, under during reading strategies, she has listed at least four of my active reading techniques, things that I invented myself. I had talked to her about them, and she had seen me teaching one of them, so I asked her, "You stole my shit, didn't you?"

"Sure did. It's good shit. You're a good teacher. Everybody has days like that."

Huh.

And secondly,

We went to the Denver Art Museum, Robert and I and our friend Marcus, who later that night asked us in a drunken haze whether we wanted to have a threesome, to which we gave a resounding no--there's one friendship that is now pretty awkward, but I digress. There's a statue on the fourth floor of the Hamilton building that I find just fascinating. It's not really anything special, just your typical nude cut in marble with an unrealisticly sized wang. I stare at it for a minute, as one does with art if one has any class at all. Robert comes up behind me and says, "PP, it's you!"

"Don't be ridiculous." I reply. "Mine's not that big."

"No, PP. I mean the leg" I look down. The statue only has one leg, and its stump is shaped just like mine. I didn't even notice.

My aunt asked me yesterday if I have adjusted to living in Denver, and I am still not sure how to respond. I don't even think to ask the question of myself. The whole idea of "How am I doing in this strange city?" or even, "How is life here different?" doesn't occur to me. I live where I live. Things are as they are. I have one leg. How have I adjusted? Funny, I don't remember adjusting.

Random Shit...I Think...

I felt the need to get onto this crazy thing and post even though I, literally, have no time for it. I woke up at 10 today, graded 3 papers, wrote two essays, and then graded 7 more papers, which brought me up to a whopping 8:30 PM (I think I ate something once or twice, and oh yea, I might have gone to the bathroom). So, I decided to go play in my soccer game at 9. I needed a break. Now, I'm back at home, chuggin away on some Beowulf analysis papers, which makes for a peachy Saturday evening (actually, I take that back, Sunday morning now). I would have gotten home sooner, but I play with some older siblings of my basketball girls and their parents were there, and they know how to talk an ear off...that is for sure. But, I can't really complain, they love me. I went from being absolutely despised by parents to being the greatest thing that ever happened to them. I don't know whether to laugh or cry.

My first week of classes were awesome. My freshmen are finally starting to liven up...thank God. They're surprisingly obedient though (but yes, I'm waiting for the breakdown). I have basically come to the conclusion that I will never assign homework because I don't have time to grade it, and I also trick them into writing. We do "Free Writes" for the first 15 minutes of class everyday. I give a topic, but they don't have to write about it. So, they have countless stories, which I will never look at, but then they are going to pick one to take through the drafting phase. Oh, my excitement. I must say though, that I'm just not sure what they learned in middle school. We are going to read "The Utterly Perfect Murder" on Monday, and they hardly knew what I meant by using the term "conflict" (and they were clueless when I said the words external and internal)...seriously? I tell them to "Show, not tell" in their writing, and it's like I'm speaking another language. I don't think I'm amazing, but we've been writing for a week and their already 10 times better than where they started (every day 2 people must share what they wrote to the class). I know, it was summer...they forget, well...everything...but, you bet your ass my kids walked into high school with "Show, don't tell" tattooed on their brains. I must get over this, I know.

I feel like my advanced sophomores are done an injustice. We read all these books, and all the writing in the class is so utterly tedious and academic. So, I make them do the same damn free writes...and they love it. I want them to still appreciate what writing can do. Is this wrong? I feel like my co-teacher is so strict, but yet my principal hired me because I voiced how passionate I was about making good writers (and making them respect what writing can do). Whatever.

Well, it's back to the books...and the papers. PS, I'm totally into my "Bible" classes right now, actually. I feel like God is preparing me for something, but I just don't know what yet. It's like too many things have gone "wrong" for it not to mean something. I mean, seriously, my plate is beyond full right now...but I'm surviving...just as we always do.

It's probably worth taking the briefest of moments, since I can't sleep anyway, to describe something pretty cool about my school.

For the most part, I'm not really able to brag about my kids in the way you can, Steph. Many of them mean well, yes, and some of their abilities are even acceptable, but I can't count on them to buy in to anything we do in class. For the most part, I have to trick them into learning. One of the more well meaning kids today even asked me, "When are we going to be writing essays and stuff?" I smiled, because they all had half an essay on their papers already. They were just used to somebody telling them, "Write an essay", and I had tricked them into it. Muahahaha!

But there is one kid for whom this just wasn't working. In a regular school, Natalie would be in honors classes--not for her hard work or her natural ability, but for both. This technique of mine was driving her batty. The frustration on her face when we do things like grammar dice or whatever was piercing, and she really deserved something better. This is where I became really impressed with my school.

I took her aside after class last week and visited the principal with her. I explained the situation, and asked Rhett if we could do an independent study. That's right, an independent study. It blew my mind when he said yes. I now meet with her for a half an hour after school twice a week and give her reading and writing assignments that she simply does on her own. At our first meeting last Thursday, I asked what she liked to read, trying to decide what kind of class we wanted it to be, and she said her favorite book was Rain of Gold by Victor Villasenor. We talked about that book--which I have read and enjoyed--and decided that if she liked that, she should read A Hundred Years of Solitude. Seriously. She is reading AHOS for the next two weeks, and doing projects about it as we go. This is seriously the greatest event of my life right now. AHOS is like one of the greatest books ever written, and I would never get to teach it in a high school class, even in an honors class, because it is soo looong. And she says it's only going to take her two weeks, after which I think I'm going to have her read Fateless by Imre Kertesz. If I wasn't a lazy writer, I would go back and add the fact that we decided to make it a Multicultural Lit class in the part where that information belongs, but meh.

Columbia River

This school bleeds purple and gold. I feel absolutely awful for gloating, but these kids are wonderful. I put my kids into home groups (accountability groups) and we went over group norms and I had them act out all 10 "skills" (10 groups, so 1 per group) and then every student wrote them in his/her notebook and signed the bottom, saying that they would promise to work hard to abide by all of these norms within their groups and within the classroom. It was fabulous. The greatest part was when I told them that they could get out their cell phones (the one and only time I would ever say this) to exchange phone numbers and e-mails in case of absences or questions about assignments, and the principal walked in with literally every cell phone raised in the air. It was fabulous. I about died. I feel like I've told this story...did I post this? Maybe I'm just losing my mind. PS...I'm owning my online classes. My professor made me group leader of team #1 today...how utterly exciting.

Anyway, my sophomores start Socratic discussions over Beowulf on Monday and Tuesday. I've had to split them into two groups (the first group will go on Monday, and each student within the inner-circle will have a student taking notes on his/comments from the outer circle...then, they switch the following day with new questions...supposedly, this helps with grading, says my co-teacher). Plus, my classes are HUGE. I have at least 32 kids in every class...and my last class of the day...freshmen (blah)...I have 35! Thank God it's not my first year teaching...I'd be in hell. Needless to say, the room is tight, but we make it work. I set an example with one girl in the second day, and everything has been pretty smooth sailing. Did I do that? Am I actually becoming a better teacher?

Anyway, I went to the football game on Friday at my school...first home game. I had to park 5 blocks away. Yea, insanity...and the student section stood for the entire game. Needless to say, we won. I guess we're pretty good. The spirit that emcompasses this school absolutely amazes me. Sorry...gloating. And my AP and Principal have already stopped by my room during instruction time to just to poke their heads in and say hi. I didn't even know I had a principal in my last school with how much he didn't exist.

Consensus: Online school...sucks; life in general...okay. Bring on basketball season.

I admit it: I was a pretty unsuccessful class sponsor last year. I had great ideas, but somehow I just couldn't get the sophomores off of their asses. I don't feel too bad about i t; my replacement seems to be having even less success. But I still feel like the kids I taught for two years--as freshmen and again as sophomores--deserved a better prom than the measly five hundred dollars we raised could buy.

Recall that I am rolling in dough, and it just keeps getting better. I went to get my prescription yesterday, and it was only ten dollars instead of fifty. Evidently it's available as a generic now. that's another extra forty dollars a month. Who better to spend it on than the now Junior class at Sierra High School in Colorado Springs?

Always the teacher, I decided to make it a matching grant. I wrote them a check for 250 dollars, but they don't get it until they raise $250 of their own. I met with Cale Szysomething,whom you might remember, and who is now their class sponsor, and is now evidently shtupping Megan McDaniel, whom you also may remember. I had to walk by Megan's room to see him, and there was instant hullabaloo when the kids in her room saw me. "Mr. Payne!", came the chorus of instant disruption. The odd part? Megan looked like she was about to cry. She missed me that much, I guess. I gave her a hug, at which the kids of course went "Oooooh! I knew it!". Little did they know she was putting the bloom on the rose of the guy in the room next door.

As I left, I ran into Jodi, who evidently has my students as juniors. "I've been meaning to talk to you!" she yelled, startling me a bit. "What did you do to those kids?"

"errrr . . ."

"They are the most well prepared kids in the whole class! They know more than my seniors! 'Mr. Payne taught us this already,' they say, and they're right. Sentence structure, grammar, the whole shit. They know it already. And what's more, they add 'I don't know how we know it either. all we did was play games in his class . . .'"

grin.

Oh my God...is that what I think it is?

So, last week, I was walking from the main campus to my classroom on the East campus. It was fairly late (4:30ish--and school is out at 2:22) and I came to the gate, which was locked. I've heard a bunch of teachers from the East campus talk about how their keys don't work in the gate, so I assume the same thing. I start to walk further up this road, because there is a car gate, and I can't remember how it's shut. So, as I near the gate, all of a sudden I hear a rustle in the weeds by me. And...to my dismay...a bobcat pops out and runs. Yes, you read that right...a bobcat! So, I start walking back to the gate, the whole time thinking, Is that a Bobcat? I'm pretty sure it is. I've only seen them at the zoo. Yes, that is totally a bobcat. Oh my God, my heart is pounding. Meanwhile, the bobcat sits by the trashcan staring me down. Freaky. So, I reach the gate, and decide to try my key. It works...miracle. So, I walk in, all the time looking at the bobcat, but I can't re-lock the gate without turning away. As I do, it disappears. I walk super rapidly to my classroom, freaking out that I'm being stalked by a bobcat. I get to my class, gather my things, and call my mom, so I have someone on the phone in case I'm attacked and killed by a bobcat outside of my door.

The next day, I go to school, still a little freaked out about the bobcat. As I open my door to my classroom (remember, we have walkways outside, not halls) what is there at the threshold but a dying lizard. No joke. Guts strewn about on the floor, but still breathing. Of course, I'm super girly. I can't apologize for it...it's who I am...I've grown a lot and can kill spiders now, but I cannot pick up a dying lizard to throw outside. I ask my 2 boy students who are there, and both say "no." Sadly, I'm stuck with the girly boys. Anyway, one of my girl students (Bianca...I only mention because I always think of Blanca from Street Fighter when I see her name...anyway, I digress) picks up the dying lizard while saying "You're all a bunch of girls," and throws it away in my trash. Now, usually, I'd have her throw it outside, but it was all too fast and I couldn't ask her to pull the dead thing out of the trashcan.

Anyway, I have this dying lizard in my trashcan (by the door...complete opposite part of the room from my desk, thankfully). I start to tell my first period class about the bobcat and the dying lizard, and about 1 minute into it, I feel something crawl on my arm. Usually, I might remain calm, but remember I'm in the midst of the story and still have those things fresh on my mind. I immediately freak out...jumping and making noises and throwing my hands about...normal Jervaise freak-out mode. Anyway, turns out it was a bee, who lands on my poster. I eventually swat him out into nature, where he belongs. My students are hysterically laughing and it is crazy...my heart was racing for like 20 minutes.

It's been a week, and I still haven't seen the bobcat again, or had a dying lizard by my door, or a bee land and walk on me. I remain hopeful that these three instances were the end...but probably not...why again do I teach in the desert?

On another note...Brandon saw a gecko in our apartment about 2 weeks ago. Oh goodness. I'll freak out if there is one in here when I'm cleaning.

It could always be worse...

1. I started my online classes today. I have a 500-750 word essay due every week about the history of the New Testament (which has required a day's worth of research about the Old Testament to even understand what's going on). I must also post a 1/4 page response to a discussion question every week, while also responsding to two other classmate's comments. Everything must be done in APA style format...I am an ENGLISH major...I operate in MLA. APA is the dumbest thing I have ever seen...EVER! WTF?!?!

2. I have like 200 pages of reading to do for the first essay, which will be due by Sunday. PS...my books aren't here yet...I finally got my class schedule figured out on Friday.

3. This is only ONE class mind you. The other class I'm SUPPOSED to be in, my advisor disenrolled me from, as opposed to enrolling me for a sooner date, which means that I officially missed the first assignment to post a biography in the "Cyber Cafe" (sounds marvelous, huh?).

4. I have 8 pages of class transfer forms to fill out since they're not accepting any of my credits. Do you think I have a syllabus from the American Government class I took my sophomore year of college in Grand Junction? Not so much.

5. My laptop just broke down...yea, black screen, not-turning-on broke down. I called customer support. Nothing worked. And, oh, guess what? There is the added bonus that the one year warranty expired FOUR DAYS AGO! Needless to say, I have to call back during "business hours" tomorrow.

6. I NOW WORK DURING BUSINESS HOURS!