Back from the West

I returned this week from a two-week trip across the country. My brother and I took one week to drive from New York to Los Angeles with stops in Cleveland, Chicago, Omaha, Colorado, Grand Canyon, the Hoover Dam, Las Vegas, and finally, L.A. I had reached a point where I was feeling "bored" with NYC, which is kind of ridiculous when you consider how many things there are to do here, and it quickly became apparent that there is even less to do in, say, the desert, or large parts of Nebraska and Utah. However, the trip was a perfect break from life, and after seeing the middle of the country and spending a week in L.A. and San Francisco, I came back to NY completely refreshed and ready to start school.

I have been emailing with a number of my sixth graders who gave me their email addresses in June. Little Kenny won an award at his summer program [I think I mentioned that previously... no?] and wrote to me in all capitals "I LIKE WINNING AWARDS IT IS FUN AND I CANT WAIT TO GO BACK TO SCHOOL AND I WILL SEE YOU IN SEPTEMBER AND IT WILL BE GOOD TO BE IN THE SEVENTH GRADE" [I'm not sure he's processed that I'm not teaching there this fall...] Others were less enthusiastic but similarly lacking in punctuation, and sadly, lacking in all sorts of grammatical skills I thought I had instilled in them through out the school year. For the love of God, Subject-Verb agreement kiddies!! Sheniqua is very excited to be in the same class as CiCi, and one girl, who completely "hated me" all spring, has written me about four emails about summer camp and how she has organized all of her school supplies by color and written the subjects in block letters on the top, in permanent marker [something we spoke about in the fall when she wrote on her notebooks in magic marker and it stained her uniform shirt]. Strangely, a number of the students who have written me back about their summers are the ones who were not very fond of me when I was their teacher. Funny how a few months can blur the school-year into a positive experience and make you "miss your teacher."

I know I miss my kids more than I'm even aware of because they keep popping up in my dreams. Only instead of having back-to-school anxiety dreams where I arrive to the first day of school and find I have to teach 35 infants whose names I don't know with no assistance [a particular favorite from last August], I have dreams where we are all sitting in the auditorium of the school and they are with their new teacher and she is yelling at them and I want to go rescue them but they aren't mine to rescue anymore. Isn't that pathetically sad? I mean, can't I have dreams that are at least somewhat symbollic or metaphoric instead of this obvious nonsense?


I had my departmental orientation today, which I had thought was a reception, and therefore assumed that we were free to arrive at our own convenience, have a snack, meet some of our future classmates and professors, and then depart. I arrived twenty minutes after it started, only to find my future classmates and professors formally introducing themselves at a large conference table. Always good to make a first impression by showing up late! Fortunately a few others strolled in behind me so I didn't harp on my lateness for very long. I spoke with a few girls in the Masters program [Apparently there is only one other girl starting the PhD program with me, and she was not there today], and met with one of the professors who had convinced me to choose their program through a series of persuasive and charming conversations in the spring. Everyone seemed very friendly and I was relieved to already know my way around campus and have purchased most of my books which now sit ominously on my bookshelves.

I remember that as an undergrad [and also while getting my Masters] I continually bought all of the books on the syllabus and read maybe 25% of the required reading, only to sell back the books, virtually unread, for a fraction of the cost I had purchased them. This time, at the cash register, I swore to myself I would do all of the reading [or at least more than I have before] and not feel like such a jack-ass for spending all the money on books I didn't use.

I have been in touch with my colleagues from last year, and they started up the school-year today with Professional Development. The kiddies arrive on Tuesday. The staff has doubled, including a new AP and a Dean of Discipline [boy could we have used her last year], and MFT and another teacher who I have worked with since my first year in teaching are both doing out-of-classroom positions, which I think will help the school organizationally but I sure hope my principal was able to find quality teachers to replace them in the classroom. Apparently there are eight first-year teachers, and only five returning staff members from last year. I promised I'd go visit sometime in the next week or so.

I'm not sure I'll be posting again till after I visit my former students... so,
for those of you teaching, good luck next week!