I'm a victim of imposter syndrome

So today was DWD at Burton ISD, and my lord do these people love their acronyms.  DWD is District Wide Day, which means everyone goes to different schools around the district depending on their grade level or content area to hear presenters talk about various topics.  There are so, so many acronyms.  Too many God damned acronyms.  TGDMA.

I went down to some building to hear about K-2 literacy teaching, which actually was pretty instructive.  Now at least I have some links for the pacing guide and the curriculum.  And I got some good ideas for literacy centers.  Also, though not at DWD, I obtained a list of the word wall words and spelling lists for the year, which helps.  After lunch, the second half was about math, so I excused myself and went back to Hanover, where I busied myself with a few projects, thought about room arrangement, and made a frighteningly long list of things I need to buy at a teacher store just to get the room looking vaguely like a classroom.

Then I went to my mom's house.  I brought her an unhealthy Chik-Fil-A sandwich and watched the penultimate "Better Call Saul."  Best.  Show.  Ever.  Also I printed some stuff out for her and tried to get her through some online applications.  My mother is eighty now, and when it comes to technology she has very little thinky cotton left.

Then I picked up Cake from volleyball.  It was supposed to be at 7:30 but it lasted until 8:00.  She is one who really burns the candle at as many ends as she can find.  Academically, athletically, and socially, she plays to win.  The other two are sluggish oafs in comparison.  Particularly Kjr, who is, it must be said, not in any conventional sense smart, and retains zero knowledge.

We don't talk about Joe

I had my yearly doctor appointment to talk about my rapidly failing organs.  So far, everything is staying status quo: bad, but not catastrophic.  Mostly the doctor and I talked about how the new medical students are unimaginative Zoomers who say it's unfair to test them when there's more than one right answer.  Anyhoo, I was glad the doctor appointment was today because I missed what sounded like the most souk-crushing "get to know each other" activity ever.

The afternoon at Hanover was spent listening to a series of talks.  In the first, two big burly security guys talk about security (no more propped open doors! every visitor goes through the front and needs a badge! lockdown! hold! shelter!).  One of the security guys seemed a little too into showing slides of blueprints of places where attacks and fires happened, with dots marking the dead people.

Next on the agenda was staff expectations.  One of these is the new Burton ISD dictums about the dress code, which they're calling "Clever Comfy."  It is extremely stupid and demeaning, even though it's basically just "no holes in jeans or legging."

Oh, and our school theme this year is "Our Community, Our Soul," as in the Pixar movie Soul.  Because we all have passion and soul and help others help their passion like the guy in the movie did.  I don't know how; I never saw it.   I just looked it up.  The hero's name is Joe.  So the point is, am I psycho or is that an incredibly dumb theme?

Then was a lot of minutiae about how we have to email parents a newsletter and include specific verbiage ("today I will learn ____ by ____ and know I will have learned it by _____") in our lesson plans.  And turn in our lesson plans.  And all the other planning and accountability stuff that I am so very bad at.  Ms. Andrews is not happy about the micromanaging either, but I'm just lost and not feeling it.  When the P was talking about how the kids have to be "voice level zero" in the halls, I could have sworn I heard Ms. Andrews mutter, "What a Nazi!" under her breath.

My room's not ready.  Nothing's ready.  I honestly have no idea what's going to happen.

I don't know but today seems kinda odd

First day back!  I dragged myself out of bed, ran a comb across my head, etc.  As always with teachers' back to school week, we started with introductions. We have a new P and a new VP, and they both spent a rather long time talking about themselves: where they were born, their families, etc.  There was one dumb icebreaker game where we broke into teams and then one person from each team tried to blow a row of plastic cups off a table with a straw.  There was no purpose whatsoever to this activity, not even team building, as the teams did not communicate except to wordlessly signal that they did not want to be the person blowing through the straw.  There was also no prize.

After about an hour and a half, we were released to go work in our rooms the rest of the day, which I did.  We broke for lunch.  I joined a group of seven others.  Only after expressing interest did they say they were going to Applebees, one of the worst restaurants to ever make money.  I had a truly terrible plate of chicken strips that were overcooked and tough.

I'm trying to compartmentalize and not think about it, but I'm actually really worried about this year.  I've never taught second grade in a public school before.  I don't know how to record my absences for sick days.  I don't know how to post grades.  I don't know what the curriculum is.  I don't know where the spelling lists are.  I don't know what I'm supposed to teach.  I'd happily wing it if I were in this position at Prestigius, but I don't think "winging it" is going to (heh, heh) fly this year.  The new P seems rather detail oriented.

Peel me off this Velcro seat

Today was a very lazy day.  Went swimming, read some books, watched TV.  Took a nap.  Just trying to steel myself for tomorrow, my first day back.  I have a lot of anxiety about it.  I don't know what teaching second grade in the Burton Independent School District looks like.  I do know that working in the BISD is much less fun than working at private schools.  I want to go into it with the best expectations.  The kids are there to have fun and be instructed and grow and gain confidence.  They are the job, not the impediments to my day, even though sometimes it does feel like that.  

My team member, Ms. Andrews, teaches math and science and I'm going to be teaching literacy and social studies.  We haven't interacted much, but it seems like we'll get along.  One reason for my anxiety is that Hanover's principal and vice-principal, whom I really admired and liked, have both left and there are two unknowns now in charge.

In other job news, LD may have gotten a new job.  She's been out of work officially since July when the company that employed her was integrated into another company that bought it. 

That pickle lady was crazy

mood: foreboding

I regret stopping this blog and never picking it back up again beyond a few check-ins, although it's certainly in my style.  There are so many really dramatic things that happened in my life that I didn't write about at the time and now seem distant.  I would love to be able to read about the deep, vivid emotion I felt at some real turning points in my life.  I didn't talk about the year-long affair that temporarily alienated my friends and ended with me marrying LD and gaining three stepchildren.  I didn't talk about the trips to Europe and just barely getting caught up in the Bastille Day terrorist attack.  I didn't talk about my ignominious and painful removal at Prestigius.  I didn't talk about my frustrating search for another job that left me feeling much less confident about my professional self than I had been.  I didn't talk (much) about the crazy, difficult first year teaching at Hanover.  I also miss out on some little moments that were hilarious or drama-filled at the time, like the insane, stranger-than-fiction monologue that my Las Vegas taxi driver inflicted on us, or the bizarre lady at the pickle shop in West Texas.  I can't remember many of the things that I didn't write about so I could have remembered them.  Also, I'm really old now.

So I think maybe I'll try to document this school year, my second at Hanover, in which I'm going to be teaching second grade for the first time in my life (I got voluntold last year to switch from kindergarten).  The first day for teachers is this Monday.  I'm really, really not looking forward to it.  As a young man, I loved my job.  I got antsy on weekends and sometimes even eagerly wanted holidays to end.  I really enjoyed my years teaching kindergarten at Prestigius.  Now, not so much.  Anyway, I've said all that before, I now realize, so I'll stop now.

Today was spent idling, driving around and just trying to relax and not think about work.  At one point, driving the car, tears actually sprung into my eyes, I felt so self-pitying and distressed about returning.  That's immature and entitled and pathetic, and I've said that before too.  

I got a Teachers Pay Teachers account today.  I don't know if that's even something people do any more, or if any kind of side income can be made from it.

LD and I took my mom out to a Greek restaurant for her 80th birthday.  I don't think I'd ever eaten spanakopita before, and it was delicious!  The lamb gyro was also good.  I got a taste of avgolemono, a creamy lemon soup which is also excellent.

74 and Zaftig wanted us to go down to Hangout where a cover band was playing.  I think the Friar might have been there, but in any case we didn't go.  I am still quite antisocial as a result of covid, and it's still 99 degrees at night here in August in Deviltown.  Friar and I haven't seen a lot of each other, as his going out is almost exclusively bar-related.

I looked for myself in the rear view mirror

Didn't do much today.  I slept a lot.  But I don't even have Covid as an excuse.  I know, because I got a second test today just to be sure Thursday's wasn't a false negative, and I am currently corona-free.  KJr is also Covid and flu negative, but Cake does have the rona.

This weekend was blissfully free of kids' activities.  Crab is still in Africa with her stepmother and Kraut, and Cake's quarantine means we didn't spent all weekend getting up at an ungodly hour and driving out to Cowtown, USA to watch untold hours upon hours of junior high girls' volleyball.  I got to luxuriate in bed late and take naps.

And yet, somehow, I still feel like there aren't enough hours in the day to watch, read, and listen to everything I want to.  Maybe it's all the napping.

Burton Independent School District has reinstated its mask mandate for at least a couple of weeks due to the rise in Covid cases.  That's good, although as I think I said most of the students in my class continued to wear them anyway.

This is turning into a Covid blog, ugh.

For dinner I made ground turkey baked in half bell peppers topped with Monterey jack.  Nature's taco! 

Tomorrow at work... more assessment based on an app that the district probably paid a lot of money for so we have to use even though it's not any better than me just asking the kids the questions!

Caveat Lector

I've been listening to the unabridged Count of Monte Cristo on audiobook.  It's 52 hours long.  I am 25 hours into it.  I have 27 hours left.  It's a bit verbose, innit.

Audible has an interesting pricing structure.  Books are one credit, whether they're a short story, or an enormous tome like Monte Cristo, or even the (yet even longer) collected Sherlock Holmes read by the incomparable Stephen Fry.  I've been an on- and off- member for years, maybe a decade.  These days, though, I mostly just piggyback off of 74's account.  Don't tell Jeff Bezos, he'll be mad.

I had a dream that all my friends, even Flax and his wife and other non-townies, went to a bar without me, even though the pandemic was still going on.  I was shocked to find them all there, but when I expressed amazement that they had (1) convened at a bar during the Covid era, (2) not told me about it, and in fact (3) had assured me they weren't going out any time soon, they just kind of shrugged it off.  I remember that in the dream, 74, at least, was a little abashed to be caught out.  I wonder what all that means.  I certainly am not anxious that they're all out having fun without me.  I like staying in.

I declare that I am England

I used to like my work.  I used to be proud of where I worked, a form of elitism and hubris I suppose.  Since my ignominious departure I've been served quite an array of professional rebuffs.  I still love teaching the kids, but Hanover has so much bureaucratic nonsense, and so little interest in acting efficiently to serve kids, that it's really draining.  Don't get me wrong; the people, especially the P and VP, at Hanover, are terrific.  It's working in the cogs of the machine itself that's so disappointing.

JHM's behavior specialist emailed me yet again to ask that I detail his behavior in the proper documents.  I know I should have done this long ago.  I just haven't been able to bring myself to do it.  I'm not sure why, but sometimes I get so... done that I can't get started on things that need to be done, especially tasks like this that are so faceless and tangled in red tape.  I feel like I don't have enough time at work to think, let alone to document who did what when and what worked and what didn't and how many minutes were spent doing it.  

It's been a rough year.

I went home and slept like the dead.

And will our voices be heard

I got tested and I don't have Covid.  Most likely.  Yet.  

At work the kids were cutting out, among other things, a picture of cheese to glue on their paper.  Super-achiever JXC told me in all innocence, "I'm going to cut the cheese, but I know it doesn't go on yet.  It just makes it easier to get to the other pictures."  I thought I detected HND, a mischievous towheaded lad, smirk at the cheese phrase.  Indeed, later he announced loudly, holding up the picture, "Who wants me to cut the cheese?"  After a positive response, he tore the picture with his hands.  JXC said, "That's not cutting, that's ripping."  At which point SEM, an earnest Indian boy, cried, "Yeah, you ripped one!  I didn't rip one, you ripped one!"

I didn't even know those expressions were still in use.

Just give me one extra season

Well, Cake has the Covid so I am isolating in the house and will sleep in my office.  I feel fine though and have three shots in me, so I'm not as worried as I have been in the past.  Tomorrow I'll get myself one of them rapid tests them scienticians rave about.

Work was good.  We had a K meeting during my one free period that was very odd.  Rand, a staff member who has some title like "Inspector of Curriculum," and whose job seems to be to make sure that everyone else is doing their job and is therefore pretty useless, started right off with laying down the law.  Our mentor teacher-slash-assistant-slash-co-teacher-slash-coach (she has an ill-defined role and an ill-defined authority) Ms. Callpork, has been doing various things to make the days of me and Ms. Young easier.  She's been doing some teaching in Ms. Young's class as well, which Rand did not react well to when she heard.  And so apparently now all support of any kind from her is going out the window, and Ms. Callpork is supposed to now sit and watch and report (to Rand, natch).  It got kind of strained and awkward, and at one point Ms. Young talked about how Ms. Callpork had been pulling our low reading group, and Rand just lit into her with this, "Don't use that as an excuse!  That's a gift of time."  It was very sudden and out of left field.  Also, I had the odd sense that none of this was addressed to me, like I was an observer in the room.

In the hallway, I expressed how odd it all was, and that not only was it depriving us K teachers of a much-needed and -appreciated resource, it devolved Callpork's role into some kind of... I don't know, observer if you want to be kind and snitch if you're more cynical.  She replied that actually this was all brought about because when P and VP happen to walk by and glance at our rooms, I always seem to be teaching but they somehow never see Young teaching anything.  I guess that explains the feeling I had of not really being part of the meeting.

After school we had a meeting on making our laptops work like the phones at work.  Truly, we live in the future.

Suddenly the night has grown colder

First day back with the kids.  It actually went fairly well.  I'm guessing that's because the day back from a vacation is usually a low-stress day and the students who are usually defiant and balk at doing anything resembling work feel more free.  Or maybe they all matured a lot over the two-week break!  Yes, that's likely.  VP and I joked that it was because the three most defiant kids (JHM, AAA, and FRH) had lost track of their disruption schedule.  "Let's see, was it me who last spent the day screaming?  Was today your day to jump on the tables, or to go limp and be dragged down the hallway on the way to music?  Oh, forget it.  We'll just start again tomorrow."  

It came up that my (nominal) co-teacher Ms. Young hasn't seen Ghostbusters.  She asked me, "Is that the one with Casper?"  Lord, I'm ancient.  I can feel the sawdust in my bones crunching as I shuffle about.

Back at the homestead, LD spent the day making a spreadsheet to try to keep track of our expenditures from last year.  It's appalling.  We spent way more than we thought on things like eating out and other fripperies.  And man, kids' sports are enormously expensive, especially when you take into account the plane tickets required to go to away games and tournaments.  I think travel shouldn't be required for kids' activities until they're in high school, but apparently I'm in the minority.

We're not currently hurting for money, but her lucrative job ends in ten days (the company got bought a while back, and closing time has arrived) and there's a general feeling of uncertainty.  It was a really great job with a CEO who was one of the good ones; it's always gloomy when things change, more so when the situation is a comfortable one and the status quo seems just fine.

Insert title based on obscure lyrics somewhat obliquely relating to the topic at hand here

Well, work wasn't that bad.  As LD had so wisely predicted, it being a teacher's work day made it a very easy transition back.  None of those trouble-making kids.  We had a training on planning for virtual learning in the event of another Covid-based event, such as too many faculty out to keep the school open.  The packet of information was called "Virtual Prep."  VP joked that it sounded like the name of a private school, and we riffed on how the dress code would be button-downs and ties, but only from the waist up.  From the belt down, sweat pants and bare feet.

There was also a training on how to (ethically!) administer the state test.  As a K teacher, I wouldn't normally do this, but sometimes we're required to stand in for teachers of higher grades who are out that week.  Substitutes aren't authorized to give the state test.  We had to sign forms swearing and affirming and fixing our hand to this document on this the ___ day of _____ and so forth, vowing that we wouldn't cheat.  It makes one feel like a professional.

We had an hour and a half for lunch, but I stayed in the building to work on my room and eat the lunch I brought.  I'm trying to eat less, and less bad stuff.  It used to be remarked back in the Prestigius days that had the healthiest lunches in the school, but as the man said, things have changed.  Also, I forgot my badge, so it would have been a pain to get back in if I had left.

endless void

Did almost literally nothing today.  Laid in bed with the dogs, mostly.  Ordered some groceries via Instacart because of wanting to avoid Covid and it's quite cold and I don't particularly want to do anything today.  Unfortunately our shopper was kind of unimaginative and simply refunded all the items that weren't available instead of getting approximate replacements.  But... mostly my ennui comes from really dreading work starting up again.  That's entitled whining, I know, considering how good I have it compared to a lot of this country and the world.  But a great number of things have changed since I started this chronicle.  Hanover is a fine public school and I guess I'm lucky to work there considering how depressing my job search was but I am really, really not looking forward to seeing the uncontrollable defiant kids.  Not to mention the bullshit assessments, unmanageable class sizes, and general diverting of funds from anything that might actually benefit kids.  

Anyhoo, as I write this is getting late in the evening and I have less than 3000 steps on my Apple watch.  Since I have a streak of 150+ days of 10,000 steps I'd better get on it.

dogs and birds

Went to Preacher’s house, walked his dog who can't stay with us because she bites.  Took a nap.  Had a nice late lunch with Friar at the Londoner, talked of Marian and work and his dream of opening a bar and so on.  Walked our dogs plus the Preacher's other dog Snorty.  When K Jr came home with Snorty a bird flew through the door but we managed to guide back out with a broom.