Four down, 176 to go
In which many dinosaur stickers are given out
Early to rise, so early to bed, even on Friday. Especially on Friday. Exhausting first week, and I knew it would be, yet I still felt surprised. Physically I was rarely seated and was over 10k steps all four days, and mentally it meant the annual reconfiguring my brain for the school year. Just like any intense job, teaching lives in your head full-time, and I’m coming off not just a summer, but the end of a long school year when my foot is largely off the gas. It’s wise to address problem behaviors when they arise, but if they arise in June? Enh.
And it’s never higher stakes than September. The most work, the most meticulous planning, so many of the foundational relationships and routines get set up in the first month, the first days. School comes on STRONG.
Week 1 was about getting my head back in the game. I often say teaching is like writing a novel, where you get so deeply enmeshed that it gets into your subconscious. Then ideas start popping up on dog walks, doing dishes, at bedtime (sub-optimal). I always suck at the first day of school, I mistimed everything, couldn’t believe how short 30 minutes were. There was rust to be shaken off.
So I learned, and had a great Day 2 of 30m classes, then an outstanding Thu-Fri with a more typical length. Running class was FUN, it felt good to be back. We started Writing into the Day, and the kids who chose to share their writing (25 across four classes!) were perfectly wonderful and hilarious, the latest in a long tradition of fun sixth grade writing.
We ended with six-word memoirs, and it was a fascinating portrait into the sixth grade writ large. “Eat, sleep, pet some cats, repeat.” “I’m a dull pencil playing sharp.” “Don’t pretend to be something else.” “Coffee does not taste like socks.” A tantalizing start to the year, I can’t wait to get into it with these kids, see what they can do. Plus, when you adopt a dog, it takes a couple of weeks for them to settle in, and then a couple months more before you REALLY see who they are. Great week one, let’s see how they fare after the honeymoon, and once they have to actually do school.
The Week in Dog Poo
I’m up at 5:30 for school, so I’ve shifted off morning dog walk duty. (Huh huh, I said doodie.) Evenings are a whole new ballgame poo-wise. For starters, Ginger is an even rarer attendee. She nestles deeply into the couch, turns tortured eyes to me as if to say, “How dare you disturb this precious muffin, so comfortable, so so sleepy?” Pooing with just Winnie has been a mostly by the books affair. She did not poo through any fences this week, but as illustrated above, she used a fire hydrant. I always love when that happens because it makes me feel like I’m in a 1950s cartoon. Except Winnie had to make it weird: she placed her butt directly on the hydrant and went right against it. The poo had nowhere to go, kind of fell sideways. My interesting dog.
And because autocorrect seems to take issue with my verbiage, I prefer the verb “Poo” to describe what’s happening with the dogs’ actions. Endless other choices I know, but I see a light charm in talking about dog poo versus, say, dog crap. And when you’re writing about bowel movements, I’ve learned you want to be as charming as possible.
The Urban Blah
Back in 2009-11 I collaborated with the brilliant Lovisa to make a webcomic that failed to become syndicated across the globe. I am pro-recycling.
I continue to worship at the altar of the coffee pot, even if I’m a year-round iced coffee man these days. Cold brew is too much work, so my iced brew starts in a coffee pot as above.
My Back Pages
From a hilarious accidental portrait of technology in 2007, an old Surgical Strikes blog entry curiously titled, “You can stand me up at the gates of hell, but I won’t back down,” Nov 14, 2007
In the last few months, I decided to do what the kids are doing and accept the newest technological breakthrough of 2004: text messaging. Does my adoption of the practice mean it’s finally reached its tipping point? I was very late to the party on cell-phones, but very early on iPods. I’m late to the texting party, but I’m hardly alone — the biggest reason I wasn’t playing along is that my friends weren’t either (though some do rock Blackberries). The other reason I kept away is that I didn’t see the advantage. Now I do, although I still don’t see the benefit of the walkie-talkie function. I had a Nextel on a job before anyone else even knew about them to think they were stupid. But I was there to pooh-pooh it first.
Later, I go on to show that the seeds for me becoming an English teacher are sown deep. Deep in nerdiness, that is.
I make an effort to text like I write: with attention to grammar, word choice, and punctuation. In my short time sending messages on my phone, I’ve probably already set a record for using commas to set off a direct address. I employ periods more often than not. I would never deign to spell “you” without the Y and O, or “for” with numbers. I’m not entirely a grammar nerd, but I am certainly a nerd. In a town full of “Ya cah is broke,” I all too often feel like I’m speaking like George Plimpton. Why should I be any less square when composing words with my thumb?
C U lata