Slices of Stacy

Existential drama or allergies?

I went back to check: it's been three years since I wrote about depression.  Three years since I've felt this feeling.  I was going to have a massive self-pity party, but you know what?  Three years is a pretty goddamn long time to go between major bouts of depression.  Fuckin' A, man... I rule.

Anyway.

The grass pollen allergies hit pretty hard right after school let out and I spent a week with wicked sinus headaches.  I've still got this heaviness feeling, like there's an anvil on my chest.  I have no energy.  I want to sleep all the time.  I feel... blank.  Hopeless and blank.  Could be sinusitis.

Could be something else.

Three years since that entry means it's been three years on Effexor.  Probably time for a med adjustment.  Time to go back to New Shrink.  Find out what's at the bottom of this.

The best bet right now is fear and anxiety.  I've jumped through all the hopes required of me (except student teaching) to get my degree.  I'm staring down a barrel at graduation, in December.  After that I have some choices to make.  Do I get a job in my current county?  If I do that, it'll be three years until I can transfer to another school within the same county.  I think I know where I want to land after graduation.  What if that doesn't work out?  I can make decent money as a certified sub.  Maybe I should just sub all spring while I take some time to figure out what I want.

Not to mention the fact that this isn't like a normal job: I'll be signing a contract.  I can't just give my two weeks' notice if I hate it.  And the responsibility?  Suddenly I'm realizing that the Governor hasn't got SHIT on a teacher in terms of responsibility.  I'll have my own classroom!  And be responsible for the education and general mental well-being of 20 or so children.  ME.  The one who has spent the majority of her employed hours in a cubicle somewhere, phoning it in and playing Solitaire all day if I want to.

I won't be able to phone it in anymore.  I won't be able to fake it.

The good news is that I am very, very good at what I do.  Maybe I need to gather all my supervised lesson observation reports over the last couple of semesters and re-read them.  I can do this.  And I don't have to figure out all the answers today. 

In the meantime, I need to call the Doctor.  Need to talk about modifying meds.  Need to be very, very gentle with myself for a while.  It's been a long five years since I went back to school.  It's been a long road.  It's probably really okay to be completely overwhelmed right now.

Conversations with Pete / Other Randomness

"So I'm totally done with school until August 1."

"What are you going to do 'til then?"

"Jack shit."

"Gonna just lay on the couch and shoot up for four months?"

"Pretty much."

"That's what I'd do."

*****

"I just had to install comment verification on my blog because of the spam.  What put it over the edge was the one about albino porn.  Because while this world needs love, sweet love, it does NOT need albino porn."

"Hey, now, say you're a lonely--"

"You know what?  There's no defensible position."

"Just listen--"

"No defensible position."

"You're a lonely albino... what are you supposed to do?"

:::crickets chirp:::

"You're right.  Who ever heard of a lonely albino? That's crazy talk."

*****

Y'all, I totally know why the media is giving Obama so much shit about Reverend Wright.  It's because THAT'S ALL THEY HAVE ON HIM.  He hasn't cheated on his wife or his taxes, hasn't been caught in a lie about being shot at in Bosnia.  His worst crime, as near as I can tell, is being an inexperienced politician who has an asshole of a church leader.  Imagine that the klieg lights were just turned on your life:  how many of your friends and neighbors would embarrass you in public?

*****

I have a friend who, while she really likes Obama, is afraid to get too emotionally invested in him as a candidate in case Clinton wins and my friend, as a loyal, card-carrying Democrat, has to support her.  I totally get that.

*****

I got all A's this semester.  And did I mention I passed the GACE?  I passed the GACE on the first try.

*****

We have a new family member.  Sweet Pea got a kitten.  I keep trying to take pictures of her to introduce her to the Internet but I forgot that KITTENS NEVER STOP MOVING.

*****

I have discovered the best pizza ever.  Now I usually go along with the pizza/sex analogy:  no such thing as a 'bad' one.  However, I have now had the pizza that puts all the others to shame.  I may not ever be able to enjoy the pizza buffet again.  Click here and scroll down until you see 'Specialty Pizzas.'  Today I had the Potato Pizza.  I've also had the Greasy Italian.  I can't wait to try the Road Runner.  For Mother's Day I had the choice to go ANYWHERE for lunch.  I chose Partners Pizza.  Am obsessed.

An Open Letter to my Algebra Professor

Dear Professor Stinson:

Now that the semester is over (HOLLA!) and I can breathe, I want to thank you for a terrific class.  I didn't have a chance to talk to you after we handed in the final and frankly, I think that this discussion would have sounded terribly ass-kissy at that point, so here it is -- after final grades are calculated.

(Note:  Plus, I'm way behind on blog postings and what some people call laziness I call multitasking! HA!)

First, I appreciate what you said about the way Mathematics needs to be taught as opposed to the way it used to be taught.  I'm terribly afraid to have to be the one to tell you this, but 'used to be' is 'still.'  I was partnered with a Math teacher for a while this semester and not only does she still teach by skill-and-drill, she refuses to teach more than one method for any mathematical procedure.  She is afraid that a) the parents wouldn't know how to help and b) the kids would just get confused.

Unfortunately, she may be partially correct.

I taught several small group lessons on multiplying by powers of ten.  (Incidental shout-out to Poor Statue at Convince Me for leading me in the direction of the Beyonce lyric:  "To the left, to the left, when you multiply a factor by a fraction move it LEFT, to the left, to the left,"  I love it when you get to see the little light bulbs go off above their heads.)  What I discovered was disheartening: the students have no real number sense.  I wanted to go get the manipulatives and re-teach the basic principles of a base-ten system.

However, I will disagree with that teacher in a couple of important areas.  When I made suggestions about things I might teach or how I might teach them, she blanched at anything that would have involved higher-level math thinking, swearing the students couldn't do it.  Maybe she was right, but if you don't try, how will you know?  How are we ever to prepare these students for classes like yours in this manner?

Gah.  Cannot wait until I have my own classroom.

Another thing you brought up that I really appreciated is the fact that we have to captivate our students where they are and bring them to where we need for them to be.  You are so right.  One of my biggest frustrations as an intern is listening to teacher after teacher bemoan the fact that "Kids these days don't want to work, they just show up, they're not motivated, blah blah blah."  Well, they're right: kids should show up motivated, ready to capture the pearls of wisdom about to fall from our lips, yada, etc. 

But that's not the way it is.  Welcome to the real world.

In my student population, kids show up at school having had no breakfast, some in the same clothes they were wearing the day before.  Their mothers may or may not have come home the previous night.  My fifth graders were probably responsible for getting themselves and at least one younger sibling up and ready to go.  A couple are even homeless.  They have had adults in their lives break promises, lie, hit, cheat, steal and go to prison.  And they're going to walk into school bright-eyed and yearning for higher knowledge?  Yeah RIGHT.

It's all about choices.  Teachers can spend their time focusing on the way things USED to be or the way things SHOULD be or they can use their energy to captivate this generation and motivate them.  I've managed to build relationships with the students that encourage participation and excitement and I'm only there two days a week!

Yes, it's going to require more effort.

No, we're not going to get paid more for it.

Yes, it is reality.  Deal with it or go home.   This isn't a job in a cubicle somewhere, where your disinterest will show up in a less-than-snazzy Powerpoint presentation.  These are children's lives.  We're preparing them for a world we can't even conceive of and, as you said, Professor, we are doing them a disservice if we think for even one minute, "I hate my job."

So there you have it.  Thank you again for reminding me how it feels to struggle cognitively and how rewarding it is to find the answer on my own after that struggle.  Thank you for refusing to answer most questions but knowing when to help, after all.  Thank you for teaching us the way we should be teaching our students.  Have a great summer.

Sincerely,

Stacy

Because I'm just not interested in albino porn...

...I've had to install a verifier for comments.  Sorry.  The spam was getting unmanageable.