Today was one of those weird days. It may have had order to it, as most of my overly-organized days have to it but it got to a point where it was hard to tell if I was hormonal or just having one of those days.
It was one of those days that started off pretty well, didn’t suck for most of it, laughed until I cried at one point, hid from my students and cried but not from laughter at another point and then enjoyed backwards dinner with my kids. Now I am looking at my computer with one eyebrow raised trying to make sense of it all. Not a bad day. No tornadoes, world didn’t end. Didn’t run anyone over with my car, didn’t eat anything ridiculously fattening that I would regret. Not a terrible day; just a weird day. Just a day that made me need a fucking hug.
(I rarely swear in my blog, so you can sense what kind of a day it was)
5am woke up to Pink singing “Raise Your Glass”. Good way to start the day. I like to wake up to the part that says “Five am turn the radio up/where’s the rock and roll?” Puts me in a feisty mood. In a good way.
I actually went to bed early last night and got like, seven hours of sleep. In a row. Yep, I know! That is weird. Sleeping more than five hours makes me dizzy and groggy. I should just stick to five hours, seriously. Plus, I had weird dreams about school. One of my students (pay attention here, he shows up later) who has super long and curly hair got a buzz cut because he was joining the army. One of my fellow teachers was wearing a suit, which was weird because he was the PE teacher. An old boyfriend showed up to school but wouldn’t talk to me. He stopped talking to me in real life, so it kind of made sense. Dreamy weirdness. I get that a lot.
5:15am I saw on line that I had a message from some OKCupid weirdo asking me if I would like to help him lose his virginity. He was thirty-six years old. I have never met this person nor even had a messagy conversation with him and now think I need to quit the online dating scene for awhile because I am attracting nothing but the strange and unusual. Which can be nice, considering I am strange and unusual, but this message was just too surreal. I tried to tell my mom about it and it took me five minutes to get out the story because I was laughing too hard to actually get the words out to tell her that not only was her daughter considered a cougar but a male-flower-stealer as well.
7am arrived at school for my early morning SAT prep class where no students prepping for the SAT’s showed up.
7:30 was a quick meeting with the director where I discovered I had actually been offered my job back for next year. So, that was good. I guess.
8am continued teaching “The Hero’s Journey” and had my 9th graders watch a documentary on Joseph Campbell. I was then able to grade papers. See how I do that? Hey, you watch a documentary; I will be over here making sure you don’t fall asleep while grading some essays. I sat in the middle of the classroom as to make sure no one slept. I hate when they fall asleep. I like to throw balled up paper at their heads and then shout, “Good morning, Sunshine!” really loudly.
9am I had to sub for the science teacher, who left no lesson plan for a teacher who knows nothing about science except for what she learned from science documentaries in high school which she slept through. Nice irony.
Noon I regaled the virgin story to another co-worker and we discussed if I should message him back just to have a really good story to write about for my blog. Laughed until we cried. She thought I shouldn’t meet him because he sounded weird. Well, duh. I explained it would make a really fun blog and perhaps she should come with me to meet him. We read his profile on my phone and when she found out he was British, she said, “Well, alright, that makes sense.” Well, I’m glad she figured it out.
2pm My dreaded and beloved 11th graders came in and so did the excuses as to why they did not finish their papers. “My computer was down.” “But you emailed me,” I said. “It crashed after I emailed you.
“I sent it to your email!” “Well, resend it using my computer and if it’s there, I won’t mark you down for being late.” “Oh, well, I don’t think I can get to my email using your computer.” Yep. Uh huh, thought so.
Then the one I dreamt about (with the hair) gave me his excuse. I told him if he wanted an extension he should have come to me before the paper was actually due. We then, at the end of class, got into an argument. It wasn’t pretty. I care about this kid. He is actually a retired drug dealer at the ripe old age of sixteen. I had noticed that ever since his dad got out of prison a few months ago, he had let his homework slide. As I re-read that, it sounds like I am kidding, but I am not. He is seriously one of the smartest kids I have and one of the biggest slackers who always tells me he will give me a dollar if he can hand in the assignment tomorrow. So we argued and I got pissed. I actually yelled at one point, “Will you just shut up! I’m actually listening to you!” It made sense then. He is planning on dropping out and it breaks my heart. I yelled, he yelled, we both said a few things we shouldn’t have and then I had to let him go. He left; I went into the bathroom and cried. When I came out, several of his classmates were waiting for me. They hadn’t seen me cry since last year.
I know I’m not Hillary Swank in “Freedom Writers” or Edward James Olmos in “Stand and Deliver” but I try. I try my best and care my hardest and yet, I seem to lose some sometimes. I yell, I have no patience, but I think I’m a good teacher. I don’t feel the need to “save” my students. I just want them to graduate high school. Actually, I just want them to be happy and safe and not in prison.
4pm I left to go to the YMCA to work off my failure as a teacher on the treadmill while listening to Greenday. It seemed fitting. No Christina Aguilera, no Madonna, not even Pink would make me feel better. I needed some angry screaming in my head that wasn’t my own. I went to lift weights as a preamble to the sugar I planned on eating later. There was this really cute guy working out next to me. I realized then what I really needed. No, not sex. I really needed a hug. No, seriously. Not a sweet and cute hug from one of my children who would then ask for a cookie, but a grownup sized hug where I could have someone’s head higher than mine.
After I picked up the kids, we went to Whole Foods, cuz momma wasn’t planning on cooking tonight, and my favorite pastry chef gave me a grownup hug. And a cookie.
Yep, that's it. No point. Just that...I really need a hug.
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