May 5: At least it's much lighter now, as I drag myself out of bed at 5:00 or 5:15---or even 5:30 on days when I think I can get away without shampooing and styling my hair. The radio-alarm is painful on Mondays, after I've been spoiled with lots of sleep on weekends. But with the recession growing stronger, at least I think it is despite governmental denials, I do remind myself that I'm fortunate to have a job. Many aren't so lucky.
On Sunday, L. and I went to Home Depot to get a larger slab of wood to repair the floor casing in P's bathroom. He had the whole project finished by the end of the afternoon, the genius! I admire people who can do tasks like that. While at Home Depot, lingering in the lighting section, we heard a loud moan and the cry of "Oh, Jesus!" and sobbing, coming from around the corner. Then an African-American woman, wearing the orange H-D apron, came in view, crying and saying something about, "Oh, my children!" as another be-aproned employee followed after her. The second woman pressed the security buttons on a see-through glass door and the two then disappeared. L. and I speculated that maybe she had just found out that she'd been laid off. Home Depot has recently closed a lot of stores and laid off hundreds of employees. The store seemed eerily empty that afternoon, suggesting that business was slow. My heart went out to her. I think of the hundreds of thousands of people who have been laid off across the country, I vow to stop griping about my own job problems. Of course, that doesn't last long, does it?
The students are now giving their "All About Me" powerpoints, and some of the details of their lives are heartbreaking, to me. A girl whose brother was shot dead. A girl whose twin died. A boy whose best friend is in jail with a 20-year sentence for armed robbery, (and with the get-tough Georgia laws for juveniles, will probably not see the light of day until he's middle-aged.) A boy whose mother lost custody of him when he was a toddler, so he was sent to live with his grandmother. Girls who just recently met their fathers for the first time. One guy went all out, and did a film of himself in his neighborhood talking with his homies. The guy, "M" is stereotypical in his dreadlocks, grillz, pants around his knees, held up by one hand.
The following story wasn't in any powerpoint, but happened about two weeks ago: one of the girls in my journalism class, who lives in the apartments behind the school, was followed home one afternoon by two teenage guys, who broke in, beat her, tried to choke her and rape her. They didn't succeed in raping her. The devastating part of the ordeal was that these idiots, who apparently were overgrown middle school students from the nearby middle school, started bragging, and in no time, the word got around our school about what had happened. The girl was horribly upset, naturally, at having her business broadcast, but at least she learned the names of the guys. A few days later, the police picked them up, and they're now locked up.
Working at this school, as I've said right from the start, has given me an education I would never have otherwise gotten.
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