Disturbing Essay

In my short year and a half of teaching, I have taught some pretty amazing students. I am pretty convinced that I may have taught a future president or an Olympic soon-to-be. Seriously.

I have not, up until this semester, had any students who concerned me. I have that student now. Not only does he concern me, but he actually makes me nervous and a little scared at times.

I have even been warned by his previous English teacher to watch out for him because he is a bit disturbed. She warned me that some of his papers may alert some red flags.

I stayed late last night to grade some essays. I was sitting alone in my room and came upon this boy's essay. It brought chills to my bones and I wanted to throw up.

I just got administration involved. This move, as much as it HAD to be done, actually makes me MORE nervous. I am concerned about how this kid is going to react when the principal calls him into the office to talk about his paper.

Basically, this essay talks about how much he hates his dad. OK, fair enough. Most teenagers probably have some strong feelings regarding their parents. However, he goes on to say that he plans on "taking care" of his father and stepmother as soon as the time allows. He also goes on to say that his father made him go to counseling and all counselors are whacked out. Again, fair enough. Then he proceeds to say that he's going to "take care" of all the counselors he's ever met as soon as the time allows. The F BOMB is littered throughout his paper, it is full of rage and hatred, and it is basically threatening some very specific people.

I am nervous to see what happens with this one.

Gum?

Much, Much Better

As I peruse the blogs of my fellow friends, I can't but smile: one is engaged and planning a wedding, one is going to Europe, one has been happily enjoying the dating scene, one has been having a conversation with God, one (my sister) is having a girl! The list goes on and on.

However, since I've always promised to be honest on this blog, I have to admit that I'm not feeling so happy myself. Yes, I smile and rejoice with them, but today was a rough day for me.

One friend came to the rescue and gave me words of comfort, though. She let me vent through email. She let me cry through the internet waves. She let me YELL (you can yell through computers by using CAPS LOCK) through the screen. In return, she gave me a great big ((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((HUG))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))). I needed you today, so thank you Kari.

On the positive side, I've lost five pounds in the past few weeks. I'm slowly learning Lacrosse. Shannon is having a girl. I CANNOT wait for another little girl to enter our family. I am being noticed at my school. I have such amazing friends. Thanks to the family plan at Verizon for allowing me to talk to Abby, Britt, Michelle, April, Kari, etc. anytime I need/want to. I adore my family and am thankful every single day for Shan and Jeff, who have allowed me to crash at their house for way too long. I smile at the thought of receiving hugs from Carson, Kye, Case and Corinne.

I really, truly am blessed with so many wonderful things. Yes, I had a really crappy, horrible day. But tomorrow is already looking to be much, much better.

Lacrosse, Basketball and A Date

These past two weeks have been a whirlwind. School started up again, and that has been interesting. As I've mentioned, I signed up to teach an all-boys English class (10th grade), so they have kept me on my toes. I am spending a lot of time planning just to teach the lesson once. I am excited to see what I can do with these boys.

I also signed up to be a Lacrosse coach for freshmen girls. A few weeks before Christmas break, an email was sent to the entire Chatfield staff asking if anyone was interested in coaching. They were desperate (obviously) and they said no experience, either playing or coaching, was required. I talked to Jeff about it, and he figured out some numbers. We decided together that it would be worth the time commitment for the money I would receive. I sent an email back saying I was interested. I figured there would be at least one other person who was interested and that I probably wouldn't get the position, but no one else volunteered and I got hired. I am now officially Coach Nichols. I have no idea what I'm doing. The girls have already figured that out, but I figure I'll learn quickly and have some fun while doing it. Right now we're in pre-season, so we have practice every Tuesday and Thursday. Tryouts are February 22, and then we will have practice every single day all the way through May.

I am still working at Enterprise about 2-3 Saturday's per month. I don't totally enjoy it, but it's some extra money in my pocket. I have also been working a lot of basketball games and wrestling matches. I am doing everything in my power to make my presence known so when it comes time to renew contracts, I am a valuable player to the school. I love Chatfield and would be very sad to leave.

In my personal life, I've been having fun with friends and family. I recently met Lindsey and Britt for sushi, which was so much fun. I met Kari and Sonya for drinks the other night, and we had a great time catching up and sharing stories. Britt and I meet every Friday after school for drinks and to rewind after the long week. AND, I had a date this weekend.

Yes, you read that right. I had a date, and it was really good. It was a blind date, so I really didn't know what to expect upon meeting him. We spent a good chunk of last week emailing and asking questions, and we both had seen pictures, so it wasn't totally a BLIND date. I knew enough about him to know I was interested. We made plans to meet downtown.

Let me say I did not make the greatest first impression in the world. First, I was late by 30 minutes. I missed my light rail, so he was left standing at the train station waiting, and waiting, and waiting. He was a good sport and helped me feel better about it. Because of my lateness, dinner was pretty rushed. We ate at Wazee Supper Club and shared pizza and had a glass of beer while chatting. Conversation was good, great actually, and we laughed and enjoyed each others' company. We then went to a Mammoth Lacrosse game. I proceeded to dump a gulp of beer down my front. I was soaked. And embarrassed. Again, he was a good sport and made it into a good laugh without actually making fun of me. After the game, we were having so much and did not want the date to end, so we took the 16th Street Mall bus to a bar called Katie Mullen's, an Irish Pub. There was a live band playing, so we sat and listened to music, talked, laughed and had a beer.

It was by far the best first date ever possible. We both agreed that it couldn't have gone any better. We have already planned date number two, and I actually even saw him again last night. Britt and I met for dinner and drinks, so I invited him to come meet Britt and hang with us. He came out for a bit, and so far Britt approves.

The best news is he loves Jesus. He's funny, he's smart, he's sweet, he has blue eyes, and he is very observant and perceptive. I'll keep you updated :)

More Pictures

Over the course of my two year Master's program, I became very good friends with Rich, Rob, and Courtney. We try to meet together once a month for dinner, so for Christmas, Rich and his wife Jenn invited us to their house for dinner. Here's the entire crew, minus Cindy, Rob's wife, who was home sick :( From left to right: Iliana, Courtney, Ernie and Mari. Me, Rob, Baby Alana, Jenn, Rich, Peter. Austin is Rob's boy in the front.

One big happy family.

Jenn and Alana

Rich and Alana

Me and Court

Ernie, Mari, Iliana and Courtney

Austin and Rich playing guitar hero

Austin being picked on by his dad

Rob and Court

It was great to spend time with my dear friends!

Random Thoughts for the Day

1. I think part of a best friend's job should be to immediately clear your computer history if you die.

2. Nothing sucks more than that moment during an argument when you realize you're wrong.

3. I totally take back all those times I didn't want to nap when I was younger.

4. There is great need for a sarcasm font.

5. How are you supposed to fold a fitted sheet?

6. Was learning cursive really necessary?

7. Map Quest really needs to start their directions on #5. I'm pretty sure I know how to get out of my neighborhood.

8. Obituaries would be a lot more interesting if they told you how the person died.

9. I can't remember the last time I wasn't at least kind of tired.

10. Bad decisions make good stories.

11. You never know when it will strike, but there comes a moment at work when you know that you just aren't going to do anything productive for the rest of the day.

12. Can we all just agree to ignore whatever comes after Blue Ray? I don't want to have to restart my collection...again.

13. I'm always slightly terrified when I exit out of Word and it asks me if I want to save any changes to my ten-page research paper that I swear I did not make any changes to.

14. "Do not machine wash or tumble dry" means I will never wash this thing I have-- ever.

15. I hate when I just miss a call by the last ring (Hello? Hello?) but when I immediately call back, it rings nine times and goes to voicemail. What'd you do after I didn't answer? Drop the phone and run away?

16. I hate leaving my house confident and looking good and then not seeing anyone of importance the entire day. What a waste.

17. I keep some people's phone numbers in my phone just so I know not to answer when they call.

18. I think the freezer deserves a light as well.

19. I disagree with Kay Jewelers. I would bet, on any given Friday or Saturday night, more kisses begin with Miller Lite than with a Kay jeweler product.

Girls' Night Out for Christmas

I got behind a little bit with blogging, so I'm going to start a few weeks ago and work my way to present.

Kari, Sonya, and I, rather than exchanging gifts, decided to have a girls' night out and spend some quality time together. We met at the Rio for drinks, and then Jessica and Britt showed up a bit later and we all went dancing.

Balls and Farts

Today was the first day of school for the Spring semester. So far, I've met three out of five classes. I have a chunk of time off for my planning periods and lunch, and then I will meet the other two classes.

This semester I am teaching two 9th Grade English courses, two 10th Grade American Lit courses, and one 10th Grade Boys' American Lit course. After spending 40 minutes with my boys' class today, I already know this is going to be a challenging class.

Let me first explain that I signed up to teach this class. After a lot of research, studies have found that boys are WAY more likely to drop out of high school than girls (I don't know the number, but it's drastic). Chatfield has learned that if boys are in a class with only boys, they learn better (duh-no distractions) and it's easier to engage them by teaching boy friendly material.

In an effort to keep my job and remain valuable to the English department, I naively raised my hand when they asked for volunteers to teach this class. I figured the more valuable I am to the school, the more likely they will decide to keep me on staff than someone else who hasn't volunteered for everything under the sun (including coaching Lacrosse, but that's a whole different blog). Anyway, today was the first day of meeting the boys, and oh boy!!!

To inform you of something you may not know is that boys talk WAAAAAY more than girls do (at least in a classroom setting). So get 25 boys together in a class, and it was constant chatter then entire period. I could not get them to shut up. I overheard one group talking about the cute science teacher they are all excited to have. I heard one group talking about girlfriends. I heard one group talking about snowboarding. It was all over the place.

To get them excited about writing, I began with a fun writing activity. The two rules were: You may not write about sex, drugs, or alcohol (keep it appropriate), and you may not make fun of ANYONE in the school building. I should have known...Apparently, talking about "balls" is appropriate to them. After lecturing one boy that that needed to be erased, he said, "Hey, we're all guys. We all have balls."

See what I mean when I say, "Oh, boy!!!" I pointed out the obvious: I am NOT a boy. I do NOT have balls. I do NOT want to hear about balls.

One boy wrote about farts, and they were all laughing so hard that I saw a few tears run down their faces. Apparently I'll have to talk about farts to keep them engaged.

What did I get myself into? I'm going to have to get advice from Collin on this one...

Trouble on the Lightrail

Britt and I rode the lightrail downtown on New Year's Eve to meet our friend Jessica (pictures to come...). We had a good night and it was good to bring in 2010 with good friends and laughs. We trekked back to the lightrail station around 1 a.m., hoping to avoid the crowds.

However, the lightrail was pretty crowded. Even worse, the lightrail was pretty rowdy. There were people drinking from flasks, people yelling, people cussing, people practically falling over people, people telling stories, etc. Britt and I, completely sober and in control, were quietly sitting in the back of the lightrail people watching and laughing together as we recalled events from the night. We were by far the most "normal" people on the train and the quietest people on the train.

We were taking the lightrail all the way to the end of its course, so gradually people started to get off, which left Britt and I with an entire seat section to ourselves. She put her feet up on the seat across from her, and I did the same. About two minutes later, the "lady" (a recorded voice) who announces the stops said, "Please keep your feet off the seats." I didn't even hear it, as Britt and I were chatting. A minute later, the same announcement came over the speaker. "Please keep your feet off the seats." Britt laughed and said, "I wonder if she is talking to us?They've played the recording twice in a row." Britt took her feet off the seat and I replied, "I'm pretty sure our feet on the seats are the least of the trains problems. Look around; this train is full of drunks. We're the only normal ones on here."

As I said this, I realized the train had stopped, and it had not stopped at one of the regular stops. It had stopped mid-track between stations. The conductor came marching into the cab, and I was thinking to myself, "Uh oh, there must be a fight or something." The conductor marched right up to me and said in a very harsh voice, "You need to get your feet off the seats. There's still two more hours of the night to go!" The train became silent as everyone stared at me to see what I had done. I was confused as to what he meant by two hours left of the night, or what that even had to do with my feet on the seat. I obediently obliged his request, and the train began moving again. Gradually, the drunks began their yelling, stumbling and cussing. We continued to our stop without any more disruptions.

Apparently, it's OK to be a raging drunk, throw F-Bombs left and right and drink on the lightrail. But it is NOT OK to put your feet on the seats. Watch out: they are watching you (from somewhere).