Jan. 19: Cold rain has streamed down the windows all day. Rivers have splashed off the edge of the roof onto the ground. It's chilly enough to turn on the heat. Right now, at five o'clock, the sky is darkening. L. and I have had a busy week. He returned from his trip last Sunday and went to work Monday. He'd been having stomach problems for the previous few weeks, before and during his vacation. He also has a sinus infection now, and has meds for both conditions, after a visit to the doctor yesterday. He was diagnosed a few months ago with diverticulitis, and now that's flared up again. But he's been in good spirits, happy to be home again, God bless America, for although he loves the familia in Venezuela, the country is in bad, bad shape economically and politically. When he goes through U.S. Customs after a trip, the words "Welcome home" from the agents, in English, always warms his heart. After 26 years in the U.S., he has lived more of his life here than in Venezuela. He really loves this country. The U.S. is by no means perfect, we all know that, but try Venezuela or many other struggling countries for awhile. . . it gives a new perspective. The one area in which V. is superior is in medical treatment. Like Canada, they have universal health care, or if you simply pay in cash, in dolares, the cost is nada. Such as that time he broke his arm while visiting V. a few years ago; the emergency room, ex-rays, doctor visit, cast, etc. came to about $100. His sister, G., who lives in Florida, goes down there to get dental work done for a song; since she is still officially a V. citizen, and not a U.S. one yet, just a resident, she can get crowns and bridges done el cheapo. Mamita and sister Z. have even had the stomach stapling surgery at little cost. The U.S. should be ashamed for not providing universal health care in some form or another. But anyway, he's back!

It was a long, dreary, painful week for me. Last weekend, I felt jaw pain on one side, not TMJ, but a hugely painful reaction to certain foods and drinks, so got a dentist appointment for Tuesday, and they saw nothing wrong on x-rays, though that doesn't rule out something. A few years ago, I had this same experence before, on the other side, and nothing showed up on x-rays until after the nerve of the tooth had fully died. Had pain for weeks, and later, when it stopped, the shadow appeared on the x-ray. Had a root canal anyway, after the fact. But this time they think it might simply be recession sensitivity (please don't scold me about that; I've had recession since I was in my twenties; it's not from neglect.) I even contemplated the possibility that I'm having a heart attack from stress; they say pain in the jaw is an early symptom. What? Me, stressed out? Heaven knows, things at work are stressing out every teacher I know.

This past week, for example, I requested a new toner cartridge for my printer and was scolded for allegedly printing too much. That really soured my mood. It's not as though I'd requested money to go on a cruise---or even to a conference. I only want basic supplies. I spend enough money of my own to keep my own printer at home spitting out school-related material. In the classroom, I sometimes let students print their final drafts of papers from my printer, but only because the school doesn't provide students with computers or printers, yet we expect them to do a major senior research project which involves research. If they don't have computers at home, "they can go to the public libary" I'm told. Excuse me, but many of our students work long hours outside of school, or can't get to the library, or would have to wait in line behind other people using the public computers.

I'm also soured about the fact that the most recent evaluator who observed my class last week, which I wrote about earlier in this blog, DID indeed and predictably take issue with that last two minutes before the bell rang. Remember, they had finished all their work and we still had two minutes till the begll, so I didn't object to letting the students stand up, stretch and line up near the door. She even put in the evaluation "TWO MINUTES [my caps] before bell, time not effectively used" with an "NI" on the sheet. I knew it was coming, and part of me doesn't care anymore, but the other part is simply angry at the stupidity that pervades the system. Their big thing is "differention" of instruction for different learners, so I'm tempted to write in my response to the evaluation that differentiation between seniors and elementary children should also be acknowledged too. The seniors are fairly mature and well-behaved, and they don't have any important end-of-course tests whose numbers impact the school rating and contribute to the determination of Annual Yearly Progress. Why is it a waste of their time to get up and stretch? What new lesson would I be starting to cover two final minutes? The whole thing stuck in my craw because I had spent such a long time planning that lesson for that day, finding modern ballads on You.Tube to project onto the wall to demonstrate how modern ballads have the same qualities as the 15th century ballads in the textbook. I didn't know anyone was coming to observe; I always try to do a good job, out of pride. But the whole 88 minutes of reasonably good instruction was negated by 2 minutes of down time? Please.

I've found out that many of the teachers are being given NI's. The resentment is beginning to spread, and teachers are beginning to talk to each other. One colleague was cited because a student was sleeping. "How can she learn if she's asleep?" the evaluator asked the teacher later. "Well," he answered, "if she's asleep she doesn't learn, but if she's awake, no one else learns." (She is the class disruptor.) Another teacher was written up because four students were "off task" during an observation. She told the evaluator, "Well, it's lucky you got me on a good day! If it had been a bad day, 20 of them would have been off task." Supposedly, if the school doesn't make AYP this year, they're going to shut it down and make all the teachers reapply for their jobs. They did that at one of the other schools in town, largely for the public drama. Well, I've been so down that I've started contemplating whether I'd be overjoyed if that happened and whether I could piece together a living with a combination of a low-paying private school job, a few part-time college courses, and social security (officially, I could start collecting in March!). I'm sorry. I vowed I wouldn't spill all this onto the blog, but I HAVE to have a way of getting it all out. It builds up inside me until I want to burst. In the re-telling, the whole situation sounds as flat and stupid as a bad dream re-told, but like bad dreams, the actual experience (as opposed to the re-telling) can be very emotionally painful. It's hard to convey in words how the climate of the place has declined via the administration's coldness and continuing demands, in addition to the doubled workload of 6 classes. The husband of another of my colleagues was unemployed and just recently started working again. He begins his job at 3:00 p.m. every day. School gets out at 2:30, so she could be home by 3:00 to take care of their two small children. It's not as though she'd be working fewer hours. Everyone knows that teachers work long hours at home too. Her alternative will be to put both children in day care to cover that brief time gap, but she'd have to pay for full-time day care, even if the children only attended for 15 minutes a day. She can't afford it. So she proposed to the administration that she could start coming in at 7 a.m. for breakfast duty every day in exchange for leaving school at 2:45 three days per week. (Her husband has one day off, and her mother can fill in for another day. She was turned down, and now doesn't know what she's going to do. Does this give you an idea of the atmosphere?

My journalism classes are a disaster. If I had known before what I know now, I would never have accepted the position of yearbook advisor. Here's how the school sets up the process: I was given two separate journalism classes, which are electives, mostly made up of students who wanted an elective in which to chill, although I didn't know that until later. The 7th block class has 30 students, and the 8th block class has 15. Only 4 seniors who were on last year's yearbook staff know what's involved in yearbook building and how to design the pages on the two computers donated from the yearbook publisher. So I have the 4 experienced students and 41 extras.

The 7th block class is allegedly a training ground for next year's yearbook staff, and I'm supposed to teach them journalism and perhaps use the material they write for a school newspaper,which we don't have)and/or for the yearbook. The 8th block class is supposed to be working on the yearbook. But guess what, yearbook material is mostly photographs that are sent to us on a staggered schedule by the official photography company. Thus, as the days and weeks go by, what in the h--- are these 45 students supposed to be doing to fill class time? Oh yes, it's called a "Journalism" class, so I attempted to launch a school newspaper. I started out by searching high and low for different interesting writing assignments they could do in class, and some out of class, which I thought could be pulled together into a school newspaper OR placed in the yearbook. I have assigned editorials, opinion papers, how-to's, columns, narratives, interviews, personality profiles, caption-writing, brochures, posters, and more, so please never get the impression that I haven't tried with all my heart to get them inspired. But the students couldn't be less interested in learning, much less doing, journalism. Apparently, all the elective classes at the school are dumping grounds for students who are hoping to chill for 90 minutes and don't care about the grade. Second problem, when the students do the assignments once in a while, they're hand written. Unless I choose to sit down and type them myself, I can't digitalize them for a potential school newspaper or for use in the yearbook. So the 7th block class is just awful. Last Friday, when I gave another writing assignment, one of the students actually whined, "Why do we have to write so much in this class?" and I replied testily, "Because this is a journalism class?" and then she got furious because she said I was being sarcastic. Imagine having to write in a journalism class! I constantly have to nag and push and tell them that class is not the place to be doing hair-grooming, etc. That's the 7th block class. I've brought these concerns to my chair, who happens to be on the scheduling committee, and I told her I would gladly swap out this class for another senior English or any regular class when the 1st semester officially ends next week, so there is faint hope that maybe they'll dissolve the class and throw them all into some other dumping ground, say, ceramics. You've got to understand: Most of these kids do not care about grades!

The 8th block students are a little better behaved, and there are fewer of them, but other than trying to keep them busy with writing assignments, which they mostly don't do, I can't get them involved in the yearbook because I only have the two yearbook computers which are always in use by the core staff designing pages. I would love more than anything to have them do something meaningful for the yearbook, but there is surprising little text involved in a yearbook, other than captions or paragraph long commentaries, so all the writing I ask them to do would not fit into the yearbook anyway---if they did do it. The order of the yearbook deadlines is 1)senior ad pages, whose text is provided by the person buying the ad 2) mug shots of all the classes, (just names) 3) clubs and organizations, (same) 4) faculty (no one wants to do those pages, they're BO-RING!)and 5)sports (B's territory). Student Life pages, the few pages that are the most creative, are the last to be sent in. A few of the 8th block students have been upset that they aren't working on the yearbook, but it's finally dawned on me that a yearbook could probably be done by 5 people who happened to have good design skills and a way with words.

The core yearbook staff has been another headache. As I said earlier, four students who did the yearbook last year are on board this year, but they are split across the two journalism classes so they can never meet at one time. The editor-in-chief of the yearbook is in the 7th block class, let's call her "K", so she never sees "S" and "H" who are in 8th block, so there are constant misunderstandings and miscommunications and inevitable drama of clashing egos. "B", another carryover, is not even in either of the two classes, but is so fired up that he skips his regular classes to come to the journalism class(es) and attends all the games, takes pictures, and does the sports pages. How can I say no to that? However, he, with his strong personality and knows-everything demeanor, often butts heads with "K" who is similar. "K," the editor, has clearly lost interest in being the editor and has become very juvenile during this 7th block class, spending most of her time doing nothing, fooling around physically with the other even more juvenile students, just like a sixth grader, ignoring the yearbook pages or any issues that we have to work on. She has a big ego, and I feel certain that she's blown off the yearbook because of some stand I've taken that she doesn't agree with, such as whether seniors who missed the official photography days should have a separate senior page of "Last minutes," claiming it's "too much work" for the staff to put together such a page. The photographer's CD with all the senior pictures has disappeared from the yearbook work station; I think one of the yearbook staff took it home just to admire all the pictures.

Oh yes, the yearbook publisher. The rep is a nice person, but throughout the fall has not been there for us, in my opinion. She has cancelled or not shown up for many meetings. Without that hands-on support from an experienced person, I feel like I'm flying a plane through a storm without any radar. It's particularly annoying when a person just doesn't show up and when you call them, you are told that "something has come up." I would think it might be more professional for a rep to call us before not showing up. I was particularly irritated the last time she came, in December, about a week before our first deadline, because she swept in with a clearly pissed off attitude (a fight with the hubby that morning?), examined the pages the students had done so far, and began scolding them for not doing it right. Well, if she had come to previously scheduled meetings, she could have helped them with the design and told them whether they were doing it right or not. This was the first year they had used this design program! As far as I'm concerned, the rep's job is to offer support and encouragement. She was snippy at me, too, saying that all these students should be on the telephone right now trying to do sales calls for commercial ads. I learned at the yearbook advisor's workshop last summer that lots of the upscale schools which the publisher services sell thousands of dollars of commercial ads to support the yearbook. The kids go out, pound the pavement, and sell space. Believe me, I tried. And tried and tried. I gave the kids assignments to visit places of business, to call places of business, to ask their friends, aunts, uncles, ministers. But they come up with all kinds of excuses. And no sales. BECAUSE THEY DON'T CARE!! But the rep doesn't understand this, and was crabby at me for it. In the end, it's going to be my fault when we end the year with a budget deficit.

It's now Sunday. I went to the gym this morning. Borrowed P's Ipod because mine has a dead battery and listened to Rolling Stones and Queen while treading and bicycling. Then L. and I went for our weekly excursion to W-M. I'm so thankful I have tomorrow off. I've griped a lot in this writing, but have to get it out, just have to. Writing is so therapeutic.

I finally had a chance to read T's remarkable children's book about one of her adopted animals. It's a winner, a real pleasure to read! She's going to send it out to publisher's soon. I have no doubt that it will be published. I'm going to store my story-in-progress for my grandson on this blog soon, just so it's in a safe place, and maybe I work on it from time to time. Writing takes me away from the irritations of (work)life and into the Zone.