No, it's really past midnight AND I am still awake.
My neighbors haven't quite grow up. I currently have my TV at near maximum volume to block them out. You can use your imagination to figure out what I'm trying to block out.
I'm looking at the following:
a PS3, with
a nice loud theater system, and in addition
buy Rock Band and NOT GIVE A SHIT ABOUT HOW LOUD I AM
I'm gonna leave my TV on and try to get some sleep.
It's a requirement now! Especially after what has happened these last two days, if you drive a white car, you and I can never elevate above being aquaintences. It was simply never meant to be; I hate your driving...
Gotta love Bartelby for not only putting literature online but explaining it as well. The full quote, of course, is "Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned," and though I have not necessarily had my heart broken, in that fantastically romantic way, "contempt or derision," that I have had a lot of.
- rant alert -
because I need that constant reminder, when shit like this happens. Yeah, it's password protected, fool. If you know me, you know it.
...it really sucks being not able to sleep at 1 AM because you're too angry and frustrated to sleep.
....my mac has a VIRUS!!! A VIRUS!!!!!!!!!!! ... one of my superiors infected the network. So yeah, I have a bit of a heavy duty project this summer: reformat my Word files, hundreds of them, so that I don't get a quarantine notice each time I close the file. >:O
Watching Andy's play, despite getting REALLY lost for over an hour
plus
120 essays and narratives to read and grade over the weekend
minus
spending half my Saturday learning from fellow teachers
plus
spending the other half of my Saturday being hinted at for being a bad teacher, the blame of students' failures without using the word "blame", and being answered with "well, I could tell you MY answer, but I really want you to think about that question and answer it yourself."
minus minus minus... D:
Picking up Final Fantasy 12 + art book + strategy guide
plus
Having my bro forget the memory card, so I can't save or play farther, for fear of being eaten by wolves
minus
Having my TAs actually enter in all the grades I told them to, for ONE WHOLE DAY
plus
Finding all of their mistakes...their many mistakes
minus
Getting a call from Berkeley, stating that my credential had finally ARRIVED!
plus plus plus!
Still gotta find the time to call the office, to verify my address
meh...
Calling parents, only to find that their work, home, and cell numbers were incorrect
minus
Working about 14 hours straight on Monday and suffer from burnt brain at the end of the day
minus
Making over 1200 copies this morning, in about half an hour
minus
Having a lunch meeting (which I accidentally missed), conference/prep class taken up by training, grades due, and needing to vote all on the same day
minus...stupid, inconsiderate calendar
Finishing entering grades 3 hours earlier than last year
plus
Voting
plus
Finding a new ATM spot when I had no money
plus
Pho for dinner
plus plus plus...bliss
Watching House
minus...disappointing episode, back to DVDs for me
Finding out that the Governator was re-elected
...there are not enough minuses to properly express this..
Finding out that my own MOTHER voted FOR the Governator and did not bother to vote for or against at ALL for the props
....D: betrayed
......If you want Jackie to become sadly distracted, set her out to search out a solution to a problem. That'll keep her occupied for hours. Maybe frustrate her for hours. Because she has to fix it. She HAS to. The lack of an answer irks her. Because these problems...the should not be, so they WILL NOT be. Dammit.
Anyway, if you're having problems with Quicktime 7.1.3, hearing sound but not seeing any video, well, except for seizure-inducing spasmic green and purple flashing on your monitor, you can fix it by:
1) Edit -> Preferences -> Quicktime Preferences -> Advanced -> click on "Safe Mode"
2) Update NVidia drivers
Fisk fisk, rawr rawr!
.
.
.
on a side-note, after actually having been able to watch movie trailers (and man, have I been living under a rock), I think I'll watch "Stranger than Fiction" with Will and "Casino Royale" with my dad.
What is this?! An entry the very next day?! This was just too good to pass up.
I've already ranted to Jery about the mother who honked me, a block from school, when I didn't move during a green light. Now, everyone who's passed their driver's permit test knows that you CANNOT MOVE during a green light when there is traffic blocking the intersection. I thought it especially wise not to break this particular rule since, you know, the police station was across the street. Did I mention that school wasn't going to start for another 15 minutes? It took a LOT in me to not flick her off. I didn't for two reasons. First, because I am a teacher, DAMMIT, and teachers can't flick anyone off. Especially those who need tenure. Second, because even if I did flick her off, she wouldn't be able to see it. My rear window was covered in wonderfully contaminated Los Angeles dew.
Today, I stayed late to back up the yearbook server. A routine cleaning does a lot of good. Problem is that uploading 4 gigs takes a while. And...I still needed to buy the security devices to lock down the external hard drive (see previous post on theft in the classroom). Off to Office Depot.
By this time, I'm tired. To everyone else, it's 7pm. To me, it's my 12 hour of work. After waiting for a slow train of suburbans to drive over a bump, I finally see my window of opportunity to make a left, which is deftly curbed by three more-fashionable-than-thou individuals deciding to step out of Office Depot and in front of my car. I stop, because I'm supposed to, and cross my hands as I wait for them to walk on by. It wasn't a sudden brake. I would have made that same type of stop at any crosswalk. Once they've cleared the path, I zoom off.
Maybe I zoomed off a little too loudly. Maybe the three individuals, two of which were girls and one of which was a guy in a black, collared shirt (collar folded back up, of course, to give that "rebel without a cause" look) thought I might actually hit them, making me a bad driver. Maybe pressing the gas was some sort of an initiation for a fight. Maybe, I should dress more like a 40-year old adult. All the same, when walking into Office Depot, a guy shouted in my direction, "Learn how to drive, bitch."
Now, this was a bad decision for two reasons. And this is why.
Reason number one: The three were Asian. That's nice. So am I. Maybe I don't look it, with my height, hair style, or gait. But I do know that we have a tendency of wearing glasses. When walking in front of my car, the once cool guy with his collar propped up had reverted to his geeky self. His collar was down, his glasses were on, and his voice was quite high pitched. I...did not exactly feel threatened. Especially when he drove off in what was obviously his momma's car. That is, of course, if that was really the same person in the first place. Either way, he had incredibly bad timing because...
Reason number two: Between me and the angry, high-pitched shouting Asian boy was a very, very loud white car, semi-parked, with a very very angry-looking driver with a shaved head. He probably had tattoos, but it was too dark to tell. The music coming from the white car would make mothers cover their childrens' ears. And if it was censored, every other word would be beeped out. Now...it doesn't take a whole lot o' brain cells to know that you should NOT shout "Learn how to drive, bitch" when said gangsta person is in the line of fire. When gangsta person is loungin' in his car. Pumpin' his loud-ass gangsta rap music. Too bad for little angry Asian boy (or b0i, as he probably would want to be called); he lacked the street smarts to prevent such an obvious mistake.
Unless the b0i was really a gangsta himself. As all gangstas do. Going to Office Depot. Gettin' his mechanical pencils and school supplies down.
Anyway, I felt much better when I helped out a lady planning for a party, in the copy center of Office Depot. It's amazing, what helping out with a small thing can do to your well-being. It's good medicine for an otherwise cynical end of the day.
I came in today at around 12:30 pm. It's a good thing I did, because if I had left matters til the weekend, there would be no one to report to.
Between today and last Friday, 12 pm, the middle office area of the Journalism wing was cleaned. Nice. Clean is good. I don't use the office area for much other than storage. My students don't use the office area much because they have little to no need to. The Newpaper crew lives there, and for that reason (and perhaps because they were having their training days on Wednesday and Thursday), the janitorial staff decided to dump NEWSPAPER'S left over fundraising stash, God-know-whose binders, and actual NEWSPAPERS in the YEARBOOK room. The yearbooks in my room and the newspapers stapled ALL OVER THE WALLS OF THE OTHER ROOM would have been a clue as to which room was whose. Thanks, coworker and newspaper adviser, thanks for being a good and ONLY neighbor. But that wasn't the best part. No...
I turned around and noticed something missing from the opposing wall. Hmm..that's funny, there was a computer there. Was. The fastest computer we HAD. I call up Computer Tech guy at the school. Luckily, the phone was placed in an odd location, hard to spot, so I FOUND that bit of equipment. I thought, well, there are a lot of new teachers on campus. Maybe they really needed a computer. I'll just ask where it is and ask for it back. But this is frustrating...I think I'll turn on some music. And that's when I find out that the DVD player is gone, along with the DVD inside it.
At this point, things are NOT good. I search for the department head, former yearbook adviser, who closes her eyes for a bit, in a cringe, and carries me through the process of filing for theft. She empathizes, because something similar happened to her, except, well, my equipment can be replaced through insurance.
Within 30 minutes, all the VPs and most of the administrative staff knows. The popo have been called (but never actually came over from across the street). They need to assess whether it was forced entry or an inside job. Important for insurance purposes. The process was all very educational. If anyone else steals about $2000 worth of equipment, I'll know how to calmly, cooly go through the motions of stolen school property. But today, without music to calm me down, I am fucking pissed. I could not take a joke from a VP, and I KNEW it was a joke. My brain registered it as being funny, but instead of making me laugh, he got me to cry. In front of the principal.
As I sat there, writing up the theft report, I could not escape the irony. In front of me was the report, in all its carbon copy goodness, and to my right was a letter of recommendation needed for a former student of mine. I needed to write down that I had been robbed, and then immediately recover emotionally enough to give back to the community.
That, in a nutshell, is really what people outside of education do not and cannot understand
It becomes blatantly clear in conversations with them. "I'm sorry"..."uhhhh, oooh"..."Well, there's nothing you can do now, right?" Well, that conversation was just about as cathartic as me standing in the bathroom, staring at the mirror, with clean razor blades in the medicine cabinet.
But I do feel better now. The cry, reassurance and understanding from the administrative staff, talks with fellow teachers and good food have calmed me down. Before I try going to sleep, I need to let this thought rest. I was going to leave a message to worthless, soul-less thieves who had so obviously made the job a clearly inside job. But since the police had not come by yet, I refrained from writing it. It would have gone something like this:
Dear thieves,I assume there were more than one of you because only a brothel of geniuses could have pulled this job. You stole the fastest computer in the room, a password protected, 4 year-old and thus tempermental Mac. You stole the DVD player, well, most of it. You left a cable, and the DVD case of the DVD that was in machine. You actually went INTO my desk and stole the highly abused yearbook cameras. Well, now you too can take 2 shots, like my students do, and have it give you a fatal error.
It was not stealing the fucked equipment that I am fucking angry about. Shit is stolen every day. But the fact that you had the gall to steal from a broken program and from a school. You exist on the same level of hell as those who graffiti on churches and beat children in a drunken fit of rage. Thus, I curse you. May the computer blow up and burn down your home, the cameras hold the incriminating evidence needed to send you to prison, and your complete lack of moral fiber disgust your own children so that they disown you and leave you to die by yourself, alone, and hated.
The title says it all. I'm not going to go into any further details. I just wanted that off my chest because I'm fucking pissed at my mother and the organization. I do not want to be associated with CPAD. What this all translates into is, for the sake of my sanity, emotional and physical well-being, I need to get the hell out of this household.
Today was supposed to be a productive day. Now I'm too pissed to work.
Yeah, what does he then HAVE money to spend on?! A special election. Yes, I voted today. I voted because it takes an individual an average of 2 years to finish a teacher credentialing program, which usually comes without pay, so that the individual can be handed a nifty piece of paper entitled PRELIMINARY CREDENTIAL. That means that for ANOTHER 2 years, this bearer of this nifty piece of paper will need to go through an induction program in order to get a CLEAR credential. And yes, even though I have a clear credential, I still need to go through an induction/new teacher program. It's just not as hefty as the folks who have a preliminary. Once this overworked but still hopeful individual has obtained a CLEAR credential, then the tenuring process begins.
Do you see a problem here?
At any time, for 4 years, a teacher can be "laid off" at the employer's discretion, and without being told for what reason they were being dismissed. If the Governator's prop passes, it bumps that time up to 7 years. SEVEN YEARS...that's a 2nd grade CHILD...when you can be fired, have a black mark on your record, without the district having the legal responsibility of telling you why they did so. t's difficult enough as it is to get new teachers, with so many more hoops to jump through ON THE WAY to the classroom. Nevermind that once we get there, we're hardly ever IN the classroom. Practically every week, there's an assembly/minimum day/holiday/meeting schedule/"lets train teachers during class periods a few days before grades are due" schedules...and did I mention that I have 36 students per class? I have 36 students per class. Just as in previous high schools I've been at, it seems that the administration is banking on some students dropping out of school, so that the attendance reflects more towards that of the state average class size. That's still 8 students absent, per day, to make it to those numbers. That is mind-boggingly heart-breaking. And folks already know about the true injustice of this glimmering generality: the No Child Left Behind policy.
No crap about teachers getting the summers off either. We don't. Not anymore. If we're not working in summer school with all the lovelies who failed our classes during the year, or dealing with extra curriculars like yearbook camp and summer training, or taking classes to be qualified to teach according to new and changing state laws, or volunteering for whatever need is out there (because we're teachers and maschocistic like that), then maybe...MAYBE we'd be taking it a little easier and fixing all the broken bits of our lives that we let fall apart when we were frantically trying to teach. It's a thankless job. The hour-by-hour breakdown after taxes and union costs, for me (and remember, I have a Master's Degree AND a stipend for teaching Yearbook), is less than $10 an hour. Never was about the money, but breaking it down like this makes taking on this job even more counter-intuitive. It's difficult and we know it. We entered knowing it, because wanting more out of society and people and life is a struggle. It's a battle against our innate desire to rest and be in comfort. Why is the state making that battle even more difficult?
This entry was categorized under "anger," for a reason. I'm angry. Frustrated too. I have a sub in practically every week, to cover for my trainings, which are mandated by the district, who has over my head the possibility that I might be fired for not doing a good enough job, because the students did not receive enough and proper instruction from their first year teacher, who was away being trained to be a good teacher. The contradiction and hypocricy of this awes me. And it makes me incredibly, incredibly tired, and it makes me feel inadequate. I know that I am a crap teacher because it comes with being a first year teacher. I know that the other new teachers are going through the same things. It's logical. I know...and still, the greatest distance that exists is and will always be the distance between one's mind and one's heart. Knowing doesn't stop me from feeling like a failure and that I am doing a disservice to my students.
It's 10 pm, and I need to begin working again, on yearbook layouts. It's going to be a long night.