Hello friends, family, and strangers (I flatter myself)! I am a recently-graduated girl finding my way in the "real world" (apparently, I've been floating around the fake world for the past two decades). Many of my friends' "real world"s consist of cubicles, nine-to-fives, marriage, babies, and other such grown-up things. My real world looks a little different. Yes, I still get up and go to work every morning, same as they do. But instead of battling fax machines, computer programs, disgruntled spouses and dirty diapers, I arm myself against a legion of 14-year-old boys. Well, 83 of them to be exact. You see, I teach 8th-grade boys' Science in an inner-city, high-poverty school. What it is not: glamorous, prestigious, boring. What it is: humorous, heartbreaking, and the most challenging thing I will ever do.

The stories I tell and the people I describe are real; you can't make this stuff up. If you are new to my blog, I hope you'll start at the beginning and fall in love with its characters, just as I have.

Monday, August 23, 2010

A Feast for Your Eyeballs.

Tonight was open house. I met some really sweet boys, along with a certain "Cecil" who declared he wanted sit in the far back corner and tried to give me dap when I reached out to shake his hand. Though he was only 5 feet tall, he had a mustache. Rock on, Cecil. You're sitting front and center.

Here are some pictures of my classroom. I really like it...hope you do too!


Back of the room.


Insert me here, squinting at the computer screen trying to conjure last year's login password from the depths of my cerebrum. Was it "JESUSSAVEME" or "xanaxplease"? I just can't remember...

Christmas lights make me happy. So happy.


So do ficus trees and lava lamps.

If you were an 8th grade boy, you would love to be here, wouldn't you? I wish you could smell the lavender and vanilla to get the full effect.




Calm in the midst of chaos. I kept thinking about this Seinfeld episode. Classic. Should be my new class mantra.

Whatcha say?

*special thanks to E for helping me acquire/transport many of the items pictured and for photographing the room with her supercool phone that does way more things than mine does.

2 comments:

  1. Oh my gosh!! LOVE IT!!!! I want to be your student! Go get em' sister! :) Love you!

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