Thanksgiving Deux

So, this was what I was writing at exactly this time last year.

Pretty tragic, yes? I read it and kind of shudder for two reasons:

1. That really was a terrible, horrible time in my life.

2. I'm a spoiled brat.

I'm a brat because I am waaayy better at feeling sorry for myself than feeling sorry for other people or being thankful for what I have.

Which, by the way, is a lot.

So I'm going to tell you what I'm grateful for--in no particular order. Thanks, Megan for inspiring me with your sweet list!

1. Again, reading my thoughts on paper (screen?) from last year reiterated what better perspective I have now. The Lord has grown me a lot this year and made me stronger for all the struggles that came with graduating and becoming an adult and taking on a difficult job.

2. Speaking of struggles, my "struggles," though painful at the time, are pretty minor. Let's be serious. Paul was asked to endure prison, being stoned, being whipped within a lash of his life, starvation, persecution, exile...I think I can handle the rude comments of a 14-year-old.

3. I'm not going to say my family is the best family in the world per se, but that's only because I haven't met every family in the world. My mom and dad love Jesus and have always encouraged us in our faith. They also love each other, very much. I have maybe two students out of 85 that could say the same.

Oh, and my three sisters are like built-in BFFs that have to love me no matter what. HA! I can't write much more about them right now or I might get a little misty-eyed. I suppose that one day I'll love my husband more than anyone else, but right now I really can't imagine loving another human being as much as I do those girls.

4. Yes, my job is stressful and draining and CRAZY, but I have one. For the second full year, I'm providing for myself! I-N-D-E-P-E-N-D-E-N-T DO YOU KNOW WHAT THAT MEANS!? I know that's just what you do when you get to be a grown-up, but it's still a little exciting to me. Oh, and another thing about my job: I'm never bored. Never, ever. AND I get a lot of paid vacation. At first I was pissed because we only get 8 days off for Christmas, but I still get eight. days. You probably get like 3 and you are silently hating my face.

I digress...

5. Ms. M is another teacher at RMS who began with me last year. She has prayed with me countless mornings, prayed FOR me more than that, laughed with me, cried with me and encouraged me. Not only is she a dear, dear friend, she is a living reminder of God's faithfulness.

6. I have been so blessed in my friendships. SHOUT-OUT TO ALL MY PEOPLE!!! Y'ALL ARREADY KNOW WHAT IT IS, YA DIGG??! But no seriously. No matter where I've gone, the Lord has surrounded me with kind, fun, interesting, encouraging and hilarious people. I know everyone says that their friends are the most amazing people on earth blah blah. And I guess I'm just going to be another one of those people. But I know the women I was around in college challenged me and sharpened me in countless ways (and continue to do so today!).

7. I'm probably leaving off a lot, but it's bedtime. Which brings me to my final acknowledgement of gratitude. Buckley, my two-year-old golden retriever is blinking sleepily at me from the foot of my bed. Oh, if only everyone were that excited to see me when I walked through the door! He is the best and most cutest little dude ever. Wonderful company, if you ask me.

Which you didn't.

But now you totes think I'm a crazy dog lady.

What if I told you I was?

Would you still read my blog?

Ok. I'm done with this cheesy post. And I meant every cheesy word.

Three things...

Ok, so a while back I did "Three Things That Make Me Want to Leave my School and Never Come Back." I figured I should balance that out by compiling a list of the "Three Things Currently Assuring Me That Despite my Daily Sufferings, This Year is Better Than Last."

1. My rolling chair is sitting behind my desk. That may sound like a big "DUH" to you (isn't that where rolling chairs live??), but don't be fooled. Last year after week 3 I had to lock it up in the storage closet to prevent children from rolling around the classroom in it at high speeds.

2. Nothing has been stolen from inside my desk. Again, last year by week 3 they had bopped me for all I was worth. Staples, tape dispensers, stickers, white-out, erasers--nothing escaped their grasp. This year, I still have zero pens/pencils, but that is due to me handing them out to the daily 24 people who forgot them and failing to get them back. My drawers have remained closed and undisturbed.

3. Remember this post? Yeah. Nothing near that has happened. Thank the good Lord. No one has attempted to pick me up off the ground, I haven't been threatened, and I can't recall at the moment a time where anyone has loudly and clearly cussed me out in front of the class. Notice I had to put a few qualifiers in that last one!

In other news, I went on a field trip Friday with our "good" kids and had a blast. I played giant Jenga (and DOMINATED), let them take turns wearing my ballin' big-assbutt watch, and taught them this dance, which we later recorded and put on youtube because we are that cool. GOSH they're funny. If I only I didn't have to teach them, being around them would be so entertaining and enjoyable.

A tall, stuffy white dude came by our lunch period for a fund-raising event. I could see him watching me as I supervised my table. At one point, he came up to me and asked me how long I'd been teaching.

"Two years."

"How is it for you...teaching all boys in only your second year?"

I gave him this look in response.

"Yes, yes." He paused here to survey me more closely. "I imagine it would be difficult for you."

Because I'm young? Because I'm a girl? Because I'm white? Because you can smell my weakness? What exactly are you getting at, BRUH? Because I'd like to see you try.

"Well, I taught all boys last year too, so really it's all I've known," I said with a smile.

"Hmm. Seems strange that they'd do that to a first-year teacher. I've taught for years on the south side of town."

The south side of town? Congratulations. I can already tell you that your worst behavior problem is the boy in the back who drifts off to sleep after lunch. I've got kids smuggling in tequila in their water bottles (yes that happened last week, for reals).

I don't know why I felt like one-upping this dude. As I was fumbling with my sweater under his intense gaze, Leontay broke the silence from across the table. "MS. M, THAT GUY TRYNNA GET FRESH? TELL HIM TO BACK UP OFF OR WE'LL TAKE CARE OF IT FOR YOU!" He grinned broadly. I turned to Mr. Fundraiser to shrug my shoulders, but he was already gone.

shut the front door.

My parents and grandparents have both recently brought up their concerns that I cuss too much in my blog posts. They don't know how to politely tell my adult self that they don't approve of the foul language I use regularly to express my thoughts and experiences.

They've tried to be joke-y about it: "Well K! We're just gonna hafta wash yer mouth out with soap, aren't we? Heh, heh!"

Then they've tried to act concerned: "You just seem so...frustrated in your posts! You know...that's probably why you say things like 'ass.' Because you're frustrated."

Both comments really translate to: "Didn't we raise you better than this? You were brought up to be a polite young lady who blushed at the mention of these offensive words! What happened to you? Where did you pick these things up? Certainly not us! We disapprove wholeheartedly and wish you'd stop!"

They seem to believe that I have millions following my blog, and that every single one of them happens to be a Puritan matron.

Relax.

1. About 10 people read this regularly.

2. You make up 4 of them.

3. The other 6 know me, know you, and will not judge your parenting based on my vernacular.

Feel better? Then how about this: Considering the fact that I lived in the sorority house for one year and have been teaching at RMS for a year and a half, we're lucky my vocabulary doesn't consist solely of obscenities.

Besides, if I started censoring my thoughts when I was writing these things, they wouldn't be very fun to read.

But since I realize that it's an unattractive and unladylike habit, I'll try to refrain unless it's absolutely necessary to convey the appropriate emotion.

GREat.

So, I took the GRE Saturday.

I probably should have studied, but now that I'm not in the routine of studying habitually, I've kind of forgotten how. If I'm going to be totally honest, as an English major I never really had to study a lot to begin with. Instead of memorizing formulas and practicing problems, I basically just read and wrote all the time. So why, I thought to myself, would I start studying now for this test that I'm only taking to get into school to read and write some more? You don't have to know the Pythagorean theory to analyze Shakespeare, and you certainly don't need to know how to solve for * if x*y= 1/2x + y-4 when (-3) (1/2) * (*) (28%^&$) + * (@3786!#$) in order to be a decent writer!

Besides, when I got home from school every day, the last thing I'd want to do was open up a GRE study book and do math problems. I'm going to be real honest with you. It's a struggle for me to even long divide. The rules for cross-multiplying escaped me right about the time I got my braces off. Math has never been my thang.

Which is unfortunate, because the test I took yesterday contained a whole lot of it. I might as well have been reading Chinese for the quantitative portion, and let's just say that when I received my scores, I drove home feeling like an idiot.

This may sound presumptuous (GRE word), but if you're talking about school smarts, I'm not used to feeling like an idiot (by all other accounts, I feel like an idiot multiple times per day). I graduated with a 3.9, was a member of several meaningless honors programs, was usually in the top whatever percent from elementary school through college, etc. etc. I know I'm not Harvard material, but I guess up until yesterday, I thought I was intelligent compared to the average joe.

Apparently, I'm not.

Here's how it went down. I got to the testing place and stood in the line to get signed in. First of all, if our airports had half the security this place had, Osama and all his homies would turn in their resignation letters now. Before I'd even gotten my bearings, I had to sign in and basically copy an entire canon (GRE word meaning "set of sacred rules") in cursive. You know, so they could compare it to my driver's license signature. There are a lot of people out there who pretend they're me, and you can never be too careful.

Yes, I promise I'm not going to leave here and tell everybody the questions on this test. It's going to be really tempting to bring up in casual conversation or as an icebreaker in awkward social situations, but I'll refrain. I also swear I'm the same blonde who's smiling at you from the driver's license you are so carefully studying with your black light. And FINE, I won't leave here and immediately write down everything I remember from the exam and mass produce it for profit. Not gonna lie, that one WOULD be difficult for me but luckily for you I don't remember what I had for breakfast, much less have the capability to recall those word problems once they're not in front of my face.

After I'd crossed-my-heart-hope-to-die'd and been affirmed as the real Slim Shady, I was passed on to the SECURE AREA where I had to turn over all my worldly possessions to a large black man. He asked me to turn my pockets inside out, turn around and do the same with my back pockets, then hand over my jacket and watch. I began to nervously wonder what underwear I had on just in case they required a strip search. He took my picture and motioned me over to the HERE'S-WHERE-YOU-SIT-IDLY-FOR-TEN-MINUTES-SO-YOU-CAN-GET-EXTRA-EXTRA-NERVOUS-WAITING-AREA. This is where I really began to question my ability to perform well on the test. I looked around the room to size up the people who would be testing with me. Hopefully I could make myself feel better by judging their intelligence.

The woman seated to my right had to weigh at least 350 pounds. She was wearing baggy jeans and breathing heavily. She had a grease stain on the front of her shirt. Obese people with grease stains on their clothes are probably not as smart as I am.

Another woman was being photographed now. She had on a black windsuit circa 1992. Her hair was pulled back into a plastic claw. People who wear windsuits and clippies in their hair are probably not as smart as I. She probably didn't study either because she likes to spend her time jogging in brisk weather.

An Indian man smelling of musky cumin sat two seats over to my left. Shit. Indian people are really smart.

A girl younger than I was sitting across the room, hair in a messy bun. She had on sweatpants and an oversized T-shirt. She was carrying a cheesy canvas bag with her sorority letters on it. No way she's as smart as I am. She's probably still hungover from that kegger. Yup. That's why she didn't bother to put on real clothes or brush her hair. At least I'm going to do better than she is.

I began to wonder what these same people were thinking about me. I could hear it all too clearly. That girl MUST be an idiot. She probably spent more time this morning getting dressed and ready to get here than she did preparing for the test. Where does she think she is with those boots and that dress? Look at her, biting her nails and nervously scanning the room! Did she really write down the website directions telling you where to go once you got in the building?? HA! HA! HA! Good luck, sweetie. You're going to need it.

By the time I got to my cubicle I was "sweating bullets," to use a hackneyed phrase (GRE word meaning "overused, stale"), I had completely psyched myself out. Even the verbal section, which I'd assumed I'd do well on, completely caught me off guard. I stared at the little countdown clock in the corner and watched the seconds tick away instead of answering the prompt on the screen.

Most of my allotted time for the first essay was spent trying to remember how to formulate a coherent topic sentence. 15:49, 15:48, 15:47...the seconds blinked in unison with the cursor on the blank page. GET A GRIP, K!!! YOU DO THIS ALL THE TIME! YOU LOVE TO WRITE!! YOU ARE PRETTY GOOD AT IT!!

15:35, 15:34...

Or maybe you aren't....

14:59, 14:58...

Nope. You're definitely not.

2:20, 2:19, 2:18

Oh my gosh! I forgot that I'm on surveillance right now!! I probably looked really dumb when I started chewing my hair and slapping my face with the scratch paper.

:05, :04, :03, :02, :01

When I finally finished the test and received my score, tiny tears pricked in the corners of my eyes. I'm not sure if it was because of the number I saw or out of relief that I was actually done.

Well, if grad school doesn't work out I can always teach a third year at RMS. NOT!

Three things.

Three things that made me want to walk out of RMS's doors today and never. return. ever.

1. Someone grabbed my ass today. And by someone I do mean a student. He was a punk about it and did it when about 25 kids were pushing past me so I couldn't tell who it was. I just about lost it then and there, and the clock didn't even show 10:00 yet. I mean SERIOUSLY!?!

2. I spend 75 minutes teaching about isotopes. I give them notes. We practice diagrams, we do examples, we look at pictures, we read articles, we answer questions. As they're packing up, I tell them to draw an isotope on a post-it and put it on the door on the way out. Three kids simultaneously: "What's an isotope??" Seriously?!? Seriously.

3. I brought cookies for my 3rd block class--not because they deserved them, but because they had improved from worst class in the universe to just worst class in North America. Made the cookies myself after school yesterday. Bought the damn ingredients off my two-dollars-and-fifty-cents-an-hour paycheck. Passed them out during warm-up. "Man, Ms. M dese cookies harder than a BRICK. Why you can't warm them up 'fore you bring em to class!?" I considered throwing both a cookie and a real brick at the genius who made this comment and asking if he felt a difference.

I'm getting to a dangerous point. The point where I'm finding it difficult to care about anything school-related. The point where I'm saying things I shouldn't during class, slacking off on the things I know I should be doing consistently. I can't care enough for 85 people, and I'm burned out from trying. Is it June yet??

One, two, three...boards up! BOARDS DOWN.

Got observed today for my evaluation.

Probably shouldn't have planned my first go-around with individual white boards for the same day...

The idea is that each kid gets a mini dry-erase board to record their answers on so when they hold them up, I can get a whole-class summary of their understanding (or lack thereof).

The assistant principal was sitting in the wings, clipboard in hand, pen poised above her paper.

"Ok, I need to know the number of protons in an atom of Lithium.........One, two, three...BOARDS UP!!!" Among several 3s, there was also a "u sexy," an "i love u," a "Merry Christmas!" and a "ANTHONY IS GAY."

Thank you, Anthony. Thank you, Willie, Quadarius and Jonathan. I'm sure you'll be among the many "concerns" brought up at my post-obs debriefing.

Saddle Up, Cowboys

This is going to be a long one.

So, this past weekend some of my friends and I went to Knoxville for the Alabama/UT game. We got there Friday night, stayed with the team at the Airport Hilton, got up and tailgated all day Saturday, then enjoyed a good old-fashioned ass-whooping that night.

*Mrs. Alley, I hate to be the one to break this news to you, but your daughter did not stay on a houseboat last Saturday night. If you'd like to just leave it at that, stop reading now.

The Plan:

The game ended at around 11, and Susan, Erin and I called our resident Knoxpert Jaime. We were going to meet up so she could give us the Grimsley Nighttime Tour of her college town. Local food sampling, late-night carousing and smack-talking were on the agenda. After we had gotten our fill of pretending like we were still students, we would head back to Jaime's houseboat. There, we would lay our weary heads to rest as the game-night's revelry waned and the Tennessee River rocked us to sleep.

Real Life:

The game ended at around 11, and Susan, Erin and I called our resident Knoxpert Jaime. Unfortunately, instead of ringing it went straight to her voicemail. Apparently, it had died and alas, she had no charger. We had no idea of her whereabouts OR the whereabouts of said houseboat. OK. New plan. I called the other friends we were with to catch them up to speed. Maybe we could all split a hotel room again and call it a night. "Hey!" My sister answered. "We decided to drive on back tonight! TTYL!"

12:00

No big deal. We decided to go to a place where we could clear our heads and devise a brilliant plan. A place where we could rest our definitely-NOT-students-anymore bodies and revive our spirits. A place of calm and inspiration. And so midnight found us: sitting silently around a table at Moe's diving headfirst into a bowl of nachos.

Maybe that was just me.

"Who do we know that's here?" Suey asked.

We rattled off four names and immediately ruled them out of the People-You-Know-Well-Enough-To-Force-Yourself-Into-Their-Sleeping-Arrangements contingency.

"Let's go to the car and start calling hotels," Erin said.

12:45

"Heyy! I'm calling to see if you have a vacancy for ton--"

"No, we're sorry but we're booked."

This is the conversation I had with all of the familiar hotel names/chains within a 20-mile radius. On to the "Valu-Sleeps" and the "Cheapy Sleep-Es." On the 3rd try ("Executive Hotel"), I finally got good news.

"Yup," a raspy voice confirmed. "We got say-veral vacancies tonight. I'll wait up on you!"

"Great!!" I said, flashing Erin and Susan a smile. "How much for one room?"

"Fifty-five dollars."

"WONDERFUL!!"

Wait a minute. Was it wonderful? I'm not an expert, but that seemed awfully cheap. And why did he say he was going to wait up on me? Don't most hotels have a 24-hour concierge? Whatevs. It was a place to sleep. We backed out of the Ronald McDonald House parking lot and proceeded to wait 45 minutes for a break in traffic to pull onto the strip.

1:45

A blinking sign flashes "Executive Hotel!" ahead. Home sweet home. But as soon as our headlights sweep the premises, our worst suspicions are confirmed. We have shown up at the skankiest roach motel Knoxville has to offer. You know the kind that I'm talking about; you've seen them in horror movies and dotting the side of the roads in the middle of nowhere. The kind with triangle-building lobbies that aren't attached to any of the rooms (so THAT's why phone guy had to "wait up" on us). "Susan! What would your MOM say??" We gather our belongings and make our way to the A-frame shack under the flickering glow of the street lamps.

1:46

Relief: Outside the door, a scarecrow sitting on a bale of hay and surrounded by various-sized gourds smiles welcomingly at us. Not scary at all. One of those personal touches that keeps you coming back.

Seized by panic again: Door is chained and locked. As is the other side door. The three of us nearly jump out of our skin when we hear a RAP-TAP-TAP! on the window. A man who we later refer to as "Meth Santa" beckons us toward him with his gnarly finger. His sallow skin is almost the exact same color as his white, stained beard that rests on the counter below him. His eyes are narrow slits nestled in the folds of his paper-thin eyelids. "Theeerrree you are!" he cackles, revealing a jumbled mess of caramel-tinted teeth. Through a series of convoluted hand signals, we gather that we are not to enter the building, but to communicate with him through the glass.

Susan and Erin look to me, silently electing me liaison. "Uh...hey there! Yes, we're here. Thanks for waiting on us!"

"You want one bed or two?"

"ONE, king-sized," I reply immediately as Susan simultaneously blurts, "Two." I turn over my shoulder to glare at her. I wasn't about to be the lone wolf in the bed by the door, no sir. If a rapist entered our room tonight, it was going to be equal opportunity, fair and square.

Meth Santa raises his bushy eyebrows. "Fer three of yous?"

"We're small."

He glances over us. "Awiueiuwh."

"Excuse me?" I say, leaning closer.

"And yer cute."

"Oh."

A wave of nausea sweeps over me as I take the key from under the glass.

"Jest drive up yonder, enter the doors and it'll be the third door on yer left. Sleep good!" He gives us a little wink. Was that a subtle threat? I decide quickly that the three of us could take him. I squint in the direction he pointed, seeing the dark outline of a building illuminated only by the light of a "Ye Olde Steakhouse" billboard. Sweet, breakfast.

1:52

We unlock the door and open it slowly, afraid of what we might see. Before our eyes adjust to the darkness, a wave of cigarette smoke hits us like a brick wall. We fumble for the light. It doesn't work. Feel my way to the bathroom, flick the bathroom's switch on. Dim light floods the doorway as the fluorescent bulbs hum their warning. "Weeeedddoooonnn'tttthhiiiinnnkkkyyouuuuwannnnttttooooseeeeeewhhhaaatttttweeeeeehaaavvvveeetshooowwwwyouuuuuu!"

The three of us stand silently in the doorway, bags in hand, cautiously surveying our arrangements/counting the potential places a dead body might be stowed. A coffee straw lies on the carpet, kept company by seven pieces of cat food. A suspicious brown splatter mark smiles up at us from the bathroom floor. "What!?" he asks innocently. "I'm just trying to distract you from the pubic hair in the sink!"

I immediately regret watching that "Hotel Insider" special on TLC where they showed the rooms under a blacklight, revealing massive amounts of semen on every surface.

1:50

Erin and I make our way up the the ice machine, where we see a fellow Alabamian about our age. "Are you as scared as we are right now?" Erin asks him.

"Yeah this place is...weird." he responds. "Found it on the internet before we got here, but it looks like we should have done better research. The cabbie refused to take us here. Had to walk part of the way."

1:54

With as much clothing on as possible for sanitary reasons, the three of us huddle together in bed, imagining Meth Santa watching us on his security cameras. He had probably seen us change and even had cameras in the shower. LIKE we were going to step foot in there! We discuss various escape routes, rape-protection skillz and items in our luggage that could double as weapons.

"Erin...did you put a rolling chair in front of the door?" I ask, laughing.

"At least we'll be able to hear the man when he comes," she whispers.

"Can we pray?" I ask.

"Dear Jesus, thank you for providing us with a place to lay our heads tonight, even if it is under mildewed ceiling tiles and in between soiled sheets. We pray that Meth Santa stays in his triangle building for the remainder of the night. Please let our car be there in the morning, and protect our purity from any rapists who might be wandering the premises. If it is Your will, keep us alive to see daybreak again. Give the rolling chair supernatural barricading properties, and don't let the bedbugs bite. We pray that we do not catch any diseases during our stay here, be it STDs or otherwise. Also, we're sorry that we're such spoiled brats. In Jesus' name we pray, amen."

9:13

I awake horrified to find that the covers have shifted during the night and my face is pressed against the bare mattress. Awesome.

Within minutes, I hear Susan and Erin rustling around beside me.

9:15

Erin: "LET'S GET THE F OUT OF HERE."

Time to bid farewell to the Executive Hotel. We jump out of our executive bed, tiptoe lightly over the executive catfood, get our stuff and slam the executive door. Goodbye and good riddance.

This is a very flattering picture.


I think the window adhesives really give it an executive flair, don't you?