Well, I’ve finished part of it, I just don’t want to do this next part. It entails writing up information I’ve already read from my textbook. It’s just factual information, so I’m not creating anything new here. It’s very boring and feels like busy-work, so I don’t want to do it.

/Whine

I’m not dead (as all bloggers seem to post after a long period of noncommunication/updates), but I’m in grad school. Only in my grad school, I don’t have to write a thesis! Yay! I’m secretly trying to work it out so I’ve got undergrad: thesis, grad: no thesis; doctorate: obviously thesis. It’s a good gap. Anyway.

I do have to read a lot. And I mean A LOT. It’s nuts. And I do have to write (relatively short) papers. Papers wherein I’m GRAMMATICALLY INCORRECT, y’all! Can you believe it? I’ve never been tagged for this. But–and I’m going to blame this on blogging and Internet culture–I’ve found out I have a problem with my noun-pronoun referent/agreement. I’ve tried to bring it up with my instructor, but I’m left feeling rather “Eh, fuck it” about it.

For instance, I write: “The student has difficulty with repetitions and they will often give their attention elsewhere.”

Well, turns out THE STUDENT is “singular”, while THEY is “plural”.

I’m left saying: Why be so fucking nitpicky? I know we’re trying to be all elite and shit with our academic-ese, but come on!

I use “plural” pronouns because I’m trying to be gender-neutral—to avoid explicitly stating “s/he” or “he/she” or just “he” or just “she”—and to avoid such foreign substitutions as ZE or HIR, which I’m sure would REALLY cause my instructors’ heads to spin.

My instructors can’t seem to wrap their minds around that yet, seeing as how they’re all about APA format.

APA format bugs me.

And I hate using gendered pronouns in my writing about a general subject noun. It could be a “guy” or “dude” or “man”, or “girl” or “gal” or “woman”, but why specify? Can’t it just be a ‘person’? English language has of yet been incapable of leaving a noun genderless due to the pronoun requirement.

The student does something. I don’t care if THEY are a “boy” or a “girl”. I believe it’s rude of me to assume either in either direction.

I suppose if this is one of my main problems with school so far, I’ve got it good, right?

I also have a lot of group work, however, which is especially trying on my nerves, as not everyone reads what’s assigned to them. WHY ARE YOU NOT READING? You are paying the same amount as me, right? And you’re not doing your assignments? Please explain yourself, for $11,500.

I’m in a teacher education program. And I’m facing the same issues I faced when I thought about switching my undergrad to teacher education: folks just don’t read literature within the field. They are not familiar with what should be familiar terms, acronyms, organizations, concepts, and topics in the field of education. They don’t do their homework! Do I have unattainably-high expectations? That you should be at least somewhat familiar with your topic before you decide to devote your life to it? For example, I’m not going to go into computer science or bioengineering if I’ve never attached a file to an email (or cannot navigate Microsoft fucking Word), or messed around with cellular organisms before. I’d say, “Obviously I’m not that into it.”

In short, class time has been rather disappointing. There are highlights, fortunately, and a few classmates I can rally around. I’m hoping it will improve. We’ve got two years.

In these following two years (getting back to the point of this), expect limited updates from me. If you’re reading through RSS (a gripe for another post sometime), don’t sweat it: you’ll see the post(s) when/if I update. Otherwise, consider this a for-now farewell.

xoxo

I’ve been working in the field for the past year and half and somehow–I don’t know how–but I seem to have the patience needed to work with these children. Or at least that’s what folks keep saying to me when I answer their question, “What do you do?” It’s not just patience, but really an annoyance, a “Dammit! This is so silly! This shit can be fixed!” type of annoyance. But this description feels like downgrading or downplaying the real severity of these children’s lives. It isn’t silly to them at all, only silly to me, in the moment-by-moment of the daily grind. Like when it’s taken you two days to assess a child’s pattern of behavior and by the third day you’re all, “What the fuck, John Doe? This shit again?” but to the child it’s “Holy shit I’m freaking out and I have no fucking idea how to cope so I’m just going to throw this chair and scream FUCK YOU BITCH”. Yeah, not so silly. More, scary and freaky, the kind of freaky where you go home and shudder at thoughts of this child’s home life.

I’ve read and heard repeatedly that the average burn-out time for teachers is 4-5 years. I have no idea what the time frame is for SpEd teachers, but by the time I’m finished with my school work and ending student teaching, I’ll be near the 4 year mark. I figure I’ll have a better idea of whether or not I can hack it by then. Right now I’m going off the fact I still show up for work after a year of being cursed at like I’ve never been cursed at before, hit, punched, kicked, spit on, and threatened with murder. On a daily to semi-daily basis. Yes, really.

With even my paltry position as a quasi-teacher, I’m scared by the lack of psychological background required. Even my on-coming studies don’t focus highly on the psychological side of things, which I’ve come to view as paramount to students’ success. They’re dealing with shit I never imagined eight-year-olds would have to face (that’s my bourgeois naïveté for ya). And in the classroom, I feel wholly incompetent and repeatedly find myself throwing up my arms in frustration at not knowing what the fuck to do to help these kids. With adults you can say, “Buck up. Buy a helmet, cause this shit doesn’t get any better” but with kids you feel remorse at their lack and/or loss of childhood, of that time when they shouldn’t have a care in the world, when the adults around them are there to make things better. With my students, often the adults make things worse. They come from “broken” homes, overworked and overburdened parents, or parents who just don’t give a shit because they’re more concerned with themselves.

I never knew this segment of children existed. Or at least, I never thought about the possibility of their existence. Sure, my childhood has mixed parts fucked-up and normal, but these kids? For these kids it’s mostly fucked-up and abnormally normal.

I suppose a lot of this rant of mine stems from the lack of support from our administrators and so-called therapists. But I’d gather even they feel at a loss as to what to do with these kids.

Statistically, I’m working with a miniscule portion of our public school student population. But really, I’m only working with kids who have been so out of whack behaviorally as to garner the recognition and time of their teachers, administrators, and special case workers. Think of all the kids with fucked-up home lives who don’t throw chairs. I’m only working with those who “act it out”, not suffer in silence.

There are upsides–if you look real hard for them, and they’re the things that keep you going.

I’ve seen students who have changed. Who have learned coping skills. Who have been able to learn how to deal with their anger and sadness and frustration and hatred in more “constructive” manners. Sometimes, I have to admit, because we all need to talk about it, it’s only because of drugs. They’ve gotten the antidepressant or stimulant or downer or “inhibitor” that has just clicked with their body and has made them calmer, or more focused, or able to deal with (acknowledge) their emotions. Other times it’s because they’ve been in the system long enough, they’ve matured, or just reached a (mental) age where they can handle the shit life they’ve been dealt. And then they move on, they go back to “normal” school, to a “regular” classroom. And sometimes they stay there. Other times, we see them again, next semester or next year. Sometimes, sometimes though, they’re in the system for good. They get passed along through elementary, junior high, high school, ‘up and out the system, and into our “justice” system.

Seeing a child go from “unmedicated” to “medicated” is halting. The first time I witnessed it in a student unknowingly, I thought something was seriously wrong. It was just like in the movies or teevee, where the mental patient is all crazy and then the doctors stab them with a syringe and the next scene they’re catatonic.

And I have to keep thinking about all the stuff I’ve read about our whole public school system. About how we expect children to sit still in hard desks for 7-8 hours a day, five days a week, ingesting things only to regurgitate them on “standardized” exams. I can’t blame John Doe for getting fidgety after 6 hours of sitting in a desk.

I don’t know what I’m trying to tell you.

I do know that I feel like I’m facing an unwinnable battle. But I’ve signed up for it, thinking that somehow I can win, somewhere, so fuck it, why not try?

Work is super-crazy. Not in a ‘I’m always so busy my head isn’t on straight’ way, just that it’s totally insane the stuff we deal with at work. It’s like the underbelly of education and I had no idea it was this fucked-up.

Two

George isn’t doing so well. He’s developed some sort of skin infection and we had to rush him to the vet yesterday. We noticed his skin on his back was red and had a visit scheduled for later today, but when The Partner came home yesterday for lunch he sent me a message that we had to get George to the vet ASAP. They shaved part of his neck and back and holy fuck is it awful—red, puffy, open wounds, puss. I’ll spare y’all the photos of that. Instead, here are some from earlier in the week, after he had been to the groomers but before it got too bad. He’s wearing the cone because by this time he had started scratching his ears like crazy, often to bleeding. We’re not sure what’s wrong, but the vet did use the word “gnarly” at least five times, mentioned hospitalization, and something about health authorities. I don’t know.

You’ll notice (kind of) that we had the groomer leave some head hair. When I asked her to give him his regular cut but leave some head hair, she was all, “Leave the head hair?” And I was all, “Yeah, his head hair. We’d like for him to have some longer hair on his head.” It’s the cutest thing ever. Although George Harrison was a Beatle, we call him Ringo.

We’re hoping he pulls through okay. I’m home with him today—he’s on a lot of meds and pain killers and we have to keep him from scratching himself. A few times a day we have to put him in the bathtub and rinse his neck and back with cool water (“hydrotherapy” the vet called it). He’s seriously so pitiful right now, passed out in a Tramadol coma with socks on his back feet so he won’t hurt himself if he does get a few scratches in before we get to him. Oh, dogchildren.

Three

I’ve been messing around with Tumblr more. My opinion on it is somewhere between afraid and ambivalent. Afraid because this shit isn’t on my own server (they don’t even have native comments) and ambivalent because it is really easy to share what you find online and there’s a good community around it.

Four

Drag Show photos. Oh my god fuck I know. You have no idea the photo backlog on my computer right now. I’ll try to get to them today and this weekend. Don’t feel too bad: there’s a Christlessmas gift I knit for my aunt that I STILL haven’t mailed to her.

Five

The economy. What the fuck is up, y’all? Every day the news reports on something or another that scares the shit out of me. I hope you’re floating.

Today (Saturday) was Octoberfest for Greater Lafayette, Indiana, and it turned out to be a great turn-out. Most surprising for me was the number of Obama supporters. The Democrats (and Republicans) had a booth and sold campaign yard signs and the number of folks walking around with Obama signs FAR out-weighed the McCain signs. WHICH IS A REALLY GREAT THING.

I would rather have two individuals who know what the fuck they’re doing than an old guy who’ll, let’s face it, probably die while in office, leaving, let’s face it, again, an incompetent, inexperienced eye-winker/flirter.

Don’t fucking FLIRT with me—help me change our country!

4 more years of the last 8 year’s shit?!

I THINK NOT!

And tonight The Partner and I helped to celebrate a friend’s and my 28th birthday!

28!!

I know! It’s VERY exciting. My extended vacation has come to an end and not by means of graduate school. But, I believe I’ll learn just as much through this position and it should enable me to narrow down grad school possibilities. I interviewed Friday, observed the classroom Monday, and started today. However, and this is a depressing however, “classroom” means I’ll be working with Other People’s Children. If it’s one thing you ought not blog about, it’s Other People’s Children. At least not those you work with.

This is a major bummer because I will have OUTRAGEOUS stories to tell; but alas, they cannot be for your eyes. Perhaps I can get away with snippets of conversation here and there. We’ll see. This is new territory for me—I’ve never ever worked with children, but so far my only worries concern winter and whether or not they’ll infect me with their child diseases.

Relatedly, here’s something from Taylor Mali that I’m pretty sure I’ve posted before, but you should watch it all the same as it will inspire the pants off anybody: