Week 39: June 8-12

090612: Day 176
Tests last year were awesome: the kids shut up and took them. This year, tests mean I have to work four times as hard to keep the lid on. There are two ways of looking at this. One: I’m not meeting the kids where they are, which is only being able to focus for five, maybe ten, minutes. Two: This is a baptism by fire, as they have to learn to take period-long tests now that they are in high school. High school. I take the latter view: I’m helping them man up for the rest of their school lives.

Today they wrote four-paragraph essays in response to one of three questions:

A. Is there too much violence on TV and in the movies? Why or why not? Give 2 reasons that support your answer.
B. Do the police and metal detectors make our school better or worse? Why? Give 2 reasons that support your answer.
C. Should people save sex for marriage? Why or why not? Give 2 reasons that support your answer.

After today, the multiple-choice portion on Monday will seem like a reward.

090611: Day 175
FR is in the SAVE room until the end of the year! And JC is suspended! Bitch, yeah. This means the other students in fourth period will actually be able to focus on their finals instead of the zoo that is the classroom.

Further information on the Dean-B-is-spreading-rumors front: I guess he’s been “spreading rumors” about how Ms. L’s new principal (who worked at our school just last year) and Principal N have bad blood. Is it still a rumor if it’s based in fact? Not that I actually know the facts, being the rumor-mongering bitch I am, but I’m assured of its probability based on what I’ve seen this year.

090610: Day 174
I’m pretty certain that FR said he would kill me if I kicked him out of the room again today. I don’t really think he will kill me—or anyone, ever—but I wrote it down because I’m out to get him. I am only human; kid makes my life miserable. So, he came up to my desk and read what I wrote. Then, standing but a foot away from me, said to my face, “Are you fucking stupid? You fucking stupid?” So I kicked him out. Dean B came for him and I was once left amazed at how Dean B has become one of the only people in the building I trust implicitly.

The drama surrounding Ms. L’s excessing and un-excessing continued today. Ms. L said she told AP A she was nervous about meeting with Principal N because she knew the principal yelled at Ms. RM last year when she resigned to go teach in Texas. So this information made it all around the building and ended with AP D ripping Dean B a new one for “spreading rumors,” Dean B being invited to an audience with the Principal herself and perhaps his receiving a letter in his file for “spreading rumors.” Of course, Ms. L and I heard from Ms. RM’s mouth how the principal yelled at her, so we’re a little uncertain about how Dean B was spreading rumors. But truth is not guiding force at our school.

090609: Day 173
Ms. L’s excessing was rescinded today. Ironically, Ms. L was planning on meeting with the principal today to say she had taken another position. But forget that Mr. B was hired before her. AP A told her not to touch the politics of the thing, presumably because they are a nasty piece of business. Ms. EV and AP A then ominously told Ms. L not to sign anything. This advice has had the effect of making Ms. L freak the fuck out. Neither of us can quite figure out what could happen to her—she has a new position—but this is also the school that broke the contract to un-excess her and wrote a letter accusing Ms. Po of making a false accusation when she did no such thing (see Day 161). Who knows what they could do?

In unrelated news, I had the most awesome Do Now today: the kids had to listen to two minutes of Radiolab that discussed a moral dilemma and apply that discussion to the morality of “Monsters, Inc.” The dilemma revolves around the idea of doing what is best for the individual or what is best for the group—and what to do when the two conflict. For the record, the Radiolab is hilarious and involves some pretty silly sound effects of a train killing lots of people. The kids loved it! Only fourth period wouldn’t shut up long enough for me to play the clip. It was so out of control—again—that I had both JC and FR removed. I am so over the bullshit. If only I could actually tell freshmen to drop out. It would certainly be better for the group if JC and FR never returned to the classroom. Of course, it would be pretty disastrous for them as individuals. But it’s hard not to think their lives are already disasters.

090608: Day 172
I’m showing “Monsters, Inc” today, tomorrow and Wednesday. We all need a break. It’s surprising how much less complicated “Monsters, Inc” is as compared to “The Incredibles.” That said, QF was extraordinarily excited to see the show; apparently it’s one of his favorites.

Seeing as how it’s the end of the year, I figure I should start ending some of the stories I started. LS, whom you may remember from that time she ran away but didn’t really (see Day 122), is no longer on roster. A couple weekends ago she was arrested in Brooklyn and since that time she has been back in a psychiatric institution.

I am sad to lose her. She was creative and literate. Her favorite subject was English. She completed all her homeworks with a high level of effort and proficiency and absolutely destroyed tests. Her short story, involving two girls fighting over a shoe stuck to the carpet with gum, was inspired and violent.

Sometimes kids are fucked up beyond your reckoning before you even meet them.

Week 26: March 2-6

090306: Day 113
Strife continues within the special education department. AP A sent everyone an email reminding us of the ladder of discipline for classroom management issues. Everyone understands this ladder and understands that they shouldn’t send students out of the room for wearing a hat or not having a pencil. What no one ever explains is what exactly to do when a student is so disruptive that teaching is an impossibility—AP A always conveniently skims over that detail. Presumably because no one in the administration really wants to deal with such dirty things.

Anyway, I digress. Ms. W(itch) replied to AP A’s email. And copied everyone in the department. (Please note, Ms. W(itch) teaches English.)

You must have been reading my mind, I was just getting ready to email you about some of these very same issues. I have a couple of students that may or may not still be on my roster at this point who very often come to class late and unprepared and in these cases I usually have them sign the late log and later call the parent because I know that is the procedure. However, I also have some students who never attends class but go down to 144 claiming that they have been kicked out of class. This presents a real issue for the deans and 144 and I know that me and quite a few of my other colleagues experience this very same thing and I would like to make it clear that this is occurring.

Secondly, I have many students that are suppose to be attending my class but because they dislike the course, practices and/or teacher is deciding to stay in 766 for the entire period. This presents an issue for me because I am calling home and telling parents that their child is not attending not knowing that many of us are harboring chronic cutters. Please understand that I am not accusing you of doing this because I know that you do not allow students to sit in your office and do nothing when they are suppose to be in class, I am just saying that it happens and this may not be the best practice for our students.

We are doing such a fabulous job as a department and I want to thank you, AP A, for your ongoing support. I will contact you via email if I should have any discipline issues with my students.

AP A responds:

Once again, thank you all for you constant support with this situation. We must all work together to ensure the success of our students.

As many of you know, the spring term observations have already started. I am not in the office to see if students are being sent by teachers. As we all know, Ms. V, Mr. W as well as myself are very accommodating to all and in the past would allow the students to sit on the chairs in the office. This is not a fair practice. Many of you are also very accommodating to your colleagues, allowing students from other classes to stay in your rooms. Together we need follow the discipline procedures that have been posted in the Truman Handbook.

Even though we are all working very hard together, we have already had two situations where one of the deans have brought the students to 766 (one during period one and the other during period 3). Once again, I thank you all for your support, but we need to follow the ladder of referral. Please log your home contact onto daedalus. Please do not send students out of your classrooms.

Thank you for your professionalism.

Only women can be this nasty.

090305: Day 112
It was a good day. My classes miraculously worked very hard on the Make-Your-Own-Superhero project. When I asked them to write paragraphs, they did. NH wrote and discussed what he was writing with me. Awesome! WR came back later in the day to finish Mr. Bones, who may be my favorite of the superheroes the kids made. Seventh period was beautifully chill, with AR, BR, RQ, WR and KCh (who cut history, again, that punk) coloring and chatting, writing and discussing.

The only hiccup in the day was ML. ML, much like NH, skipped pretty much all of last semester. He did come a couple times, but he was unremarkable when he came. This semester, though, holy fuck that kid’s a punk. He comes in yelling at me and likes to write “fuck” all over my whiteboard while I’m teaching. Today, as he was fuck-ing up my board, I walked back to my teacher closet, took out my camera, and snapped a picture of him. Too bad my camera wasn’t set to autofocus, or I could have had some actual proof of his assholery. About ten minutes later he ran out of the classroom. Problem solved, as far as I’m concerned.

090304: Day 111
I had my spring observation today. It went very, very well. Ms. N, the principal, came during my first period to observe my students making their own superheroes in small groups. Ms. N described my organization and preparation as “anal,” which she said was a good thing, and then asked me if I was getting them ready for Regents. I replied that I was, in fact. We then had a somewhat disorienting conversation where I may have agreed to teach the same group of kids next year. You know, so I could take them through two years and really teach them how to pass the Regents.

Theoretically, I would love to have the same kids for two years in a row. It’s not that I don’t trust the other English teachers in Special Education; it’s just that there is absolutely no cooperation among us. And now that Ms. W(itch) hates me, I suspect that lack of cooperation will continue. Last year, I campaigned pretty hard for having 11th and 12th grade (instead of 10th and 12th, which I had last year) so I could really get them to write well and pass standardized tests. Naturally, they gave me ninth grade.

The kids this year could definitely do well on standardized tests: they can read and I know I can get them to write well. But fuck me if I have to have some of them again. As much as I want someone to let me out of the box so I can really teach, did it have to be with this year’s kids?

090303: Day 110
Let me take a moment to introduce a new student: NH. Technically, I had NH last semester; he never came. I saw him once, in the hallway, right before the class he had with me. The school aide was trying to convince him to go into my classrom, but he wouldn’t. So he was taken to 144.

This semester I have him third period, which is official attendance. He pretty much has to come to me. I can’t say he’s doing a good job, because he isn’t. But he’s doing 50% better than last semester. We had a test today—god I hate test days—and when I gave him very direct instructions, he worked. He sat in the lawn chair and actually tried to get the test done. I’ve even seen him smile a couple times.

090302: Day 109
New York City had its first snow day in five years today. I woke up at my usual time—five in the a.m.—looked out the window at the oodles of snow, and decided that I was not going to go in. New York does not have snow days as a rule, so I emailed AP A my intentions of taking a day and then proceeded to gchat with Ms. L about the copious amounts of snow and wind outside.

It’s a sad state of affairs when you’re up at 5:30 and know others who are up at 5:30 and spend a good fifteen minutes chatting with them over the computer about the snow outside before the sun is even up.

Anyway, Ms. L told me partway through our chat that school was canceled. I was very confused. According to her, ABC 7 had just announced that New York City public schools were closed due to inclement weather. I was quite skeptical—not of Ms. L, but of ABC 7. Don’t they know the DOE never cancels school? I spent the next fifteen minutes compulsively checking my email and the NYC DOE homepage for confirmation of the cancellation. It took them fifteen minutes to update the homepage to say school was closed! And no one in the DOE ever sent me an email about school being canceled, which I consider bad form.

Outrage aside, I had a fabulous day. Jeff and I sat around the apartment, and I did a little bit of work for Mercy, and that was that. Delicious.

Week 21: January 20-23

090123: Day 88
I used to love test days because they required so little effort from me. This year is a different story. “No talking during the test” means nothing to my students—at least not to third, fourth or seventh periods.

Fourth period talked the entirety of the test, with the exception of AM and SS. Lack of focus I can deal with, but these students’ lack of self-control is beyond the pale. I yelled, I begged, I kicked DD out. By the time I had read the short story at the beginning of the test, they had less than a half an hour to work on their finals. I’m looking forward to failing a lot of kids in fourth period.

Then came fifth period: they settled down, with pens or pencils out, within two minutes of the bell. I read the short story I wrote (a sequel to “The Arcade”) aloud and they had a good 35 minutes left in the period to work on their tests. And then they sat there and worked on their tests. God bless them.

That picture up there, by the way, with the swear words written on the board, is the result of seventh period. LF told me, when I accused him of talking, that he wasn’t talking: “it’s the other personality I have inside of me.” So I moved his entire desk up to the front of the classroom, facing away from the class. He sat there, wrote curse words on the board. I took a picture of it, in front of the whole class. They were shocked. Small victories.

Oh, I almost forgot to mention: our rescheduled meeting with the principal? She canceled it because she had some business in the basement to take care of. That’s correct, the basement. Our original meeting was for Friday, January 16. We will not actually meet until, theoretically, Monday, February 2. Stay tuned to see what happens (or doesn’t).

090122: Day 87
First thing MN tells me this morning is that LS and NR were discussing, loudly, what a racist I am in Ms. Po’s class. Then he told me how he stuck up for me: “I said, she’s never racist to us. I don’t know what you’re talking about.” BU was also there, standing in my defense, he said. CG, who is in my fourth period class but is always in my classroom, wandered into first period during this conversation and made a dismissive wave, saying “Yeah, I didn’t know what they were talking about and I told them so.” That from a girl who is friends with NR.

On the one hand, how awesome that I have students who make it a point to stand up for me. On the other, it pains me that any of my students think I am racist.

090121: Day 86
I wash my hands of NR. She accused me today of being too sensitive, running my mouth too much, and disrespecting her and my other students. I know I shouldn’t engage with students in arguments. And I know NR is a capital-B Bitch. But I simply cannot let my students keep talking shit about me—to my face—without defending myself. So I defended myself. And then I kicked her out. Fuck her.

Also, I’ve been catching bits of pieces of conversation today and yesterday regarding AM and his girlfriend—or at least, I presume she is a girlfriend. From what I inadvertently picked up by simple virtue of being in the classroom while these conversations took place, AM’s girlfriend told him she was pregnant. He was freaking out, and much discussion took place as to what he should do with this tidbit of information. Little did the poor kid know girlfriend was just testing him. She told him a day after telling him she was pregnant that she wasn’t ever pregnant. She just wanted to know what he would do if she were. I have no commentary for this aside from exclamation points: !!! !!!

090120: Day 85
Ms. L was in DC all weekend, but decided to come back to the Bronx before the Inauguration—I assume some sense of responsibility and hope (how apropos) drove her back. I myself was pretty excited to have the opportunity to watch Barack Obama take the oath of office with my students in a school-wide assembly of our all-but-entirely Black and Hispanic student body. That right there is proof positive that my idealism and optimism remain, albeit buried somewhere deep, deep inside of me.

The day was a disappointment. Students talked through the entire affair. I have some sympathy for them: the sound was horrible, and I’m not sure even I as a 14 year old would have been able to understand a lot of what Obama was talking about, let alone these students the system forgot. However, 14-year-old me would sure as shit have been quiet during the Inauguration of the first Black president of the United States of America. She would have tried to understand what he was saying.

I’m not sure why I was surprised the day was a bust. In what world would the kids have been quiet and respectful? Strange how that little optimist in me refuses to die.

Week 18: December 22-23

081223: Day 76
The DOE is a cruel mistress, keeping school in session this Monday and Tuesday. Moreover, my principal is a cruel mistress for asking (requiring?) all her teachers to give tests on Tuesday. Or maybe we were supposed to give tests Monday and Tuesday. It is of no matter now, though, as it is over.

The idea behind giving tests right before vacations is that they will encourage attendance on days when everyone knows the students are not going to come. This is no more an encouragement for attendance than telling kids they must attend class on the Tuesday before Christmas because that’s the only day we can pull their fingernails out with pliers.

So my day was spent dealing with grumpy, emotionally disturbed students (many of whom I have really grown to hate) who wanted nothing more than to do absolutely nothing, eat free food (CG, to me: You didn’t bring no cookies? Me to CG: You didn’t bring no cookies?) and bitch about the tests they had to take.

Vacation did not come soon enough.

081222: Day 75
Movie day! Ms. Pe and I took the kids who earned the most points on the behavior rubric (See Day 70) from last week to see “Seven Pounds.” While the movie was kind of awful, despite its having Will Smith, the kids had a really good time. And I didn’t have to teach two of my five classes—we left after fourth period—so I was pretty happy.

I have some pangs of guilt when it comes to Ms. L, who stayed behind and taught all of our kids for periods five-eight. All of them except for the twenty best-behaved. I am a horrible person and left no work for my fifth and seventh periods to do, thus forcing them to work on her trial of Andrew Jackson project for two periods. And also forcing Ms. L to deal with their having to work on her project for two periods. According to her, period five was fine, but periods “seven and eight were train wrecks.”

So, to Ms. L: Sorry. If it’s any consolation, the movie theater was freezing cold. We all had to wear our jackets to stay warm enough. And, like I said, the movie kinda sucked.

Week 8: October 14-17

081017: Day 32
This appears to be the week when our disappointing and heartbreaking school life turns out to be the most hilarious of black comedies. During our lunch meeting, Ms. P, Ms. P, Ms. L and I laughed at our students. Really hard, like crying hard. The affair involved impressions: Ms. L does a painfully accurate rendition of BU when he’s frustrated to the point of tears, Ms. P impersonated QF impersonating Stewie and, of course, she continued to do the best ever impression of LF, who has got to have tourettes syndrome. His tourettes is naturally one of the funniest parts of our day.

081016: Day 31
This is DD’s hat. His classmates stole it from him in order to “teach him a lesson.” Apparently DD is always stealing other kids’ things, and they were a little sick of it.

This hat was returned to me by one of those lesson-teachers just moments before I was planning on calling DD’s mother for another, unrelated incident. In this episode of DD Drives Us Crazy, DD was making a poster in Ms. P’s science class. He was using glue. While using this glue he pretended to be jerking off and made the bottle of Elmer’s come. I’m not sure how far the bottle came, but I know that the display disturbed Ms. P profoundly.

So I made my telephone call to DD’s mother, and ended up talking to his grandmother. I mentioned about the hat, how I had it, how he apparently is doing something to bring this stuff on himself, how he wasn’t in his eighth period class when I went to look for him to return his hat, and then realized I could in no way tell this kid’s grandma about the masturbation thing. So I called his mom’s cell phone, told her everything I told his grandma, and then we got around to his love toy, the glue bottle. I told the story with as little titillating language as possible. Mom was sufficiently shocked, and then I pretty much said, “Yeah . . . well, that’s it from this end. OK. Bye.”

081015: Day 30
Despite our not really doing anything today, it was eventful. We gave the PSAT to every student in the 9th, 10th, and 11th grades. “Never mind that it’s an eleventh grade test, let’s have everyone take it and waste a day of instruction!” we say.

I oversaw a room of 20 students with learning disabilities and emotional disturbances as they attempted to write and bubble in their personal information. This took at least twenty minutes longer than it was scheduled to. They do not know how to bubble. They do not understand they need to write their name and fill in the bubbles beneath the letters. To bake up a cake of fluffy Ms. G frustration combine this critical lack of understanding with another cup of stunning ineptitude, in the form of their inability to supply their home address without overly explicit instruction.

Student 1: “Should I write down Boulevard?”
Me: “Yes, include the number, the street name and St., Ave or Blvd. . . .”
Student 2: “What do you mean zip code?”
Student 3: “What zip code?”
Me: “Your zipcode!”
Student 3: “What is it?”
Me: “I don’t know your zipcode. The zipcode where you live!”

Oh, also, we had a faculty meeting at the end of the day and our principal told us she’s already had to give back $1.5 million and will probably have to give back another $1 million before the end of the October. So, that would be 10 staff jobs. But she’s just gonna stop ordering books and hiring substitutes instead of firing people. What a relief that is. Thank god I understand how all this works or I would be really nervous.

081014: Day 29
The elevator incident (080925: Day 20) came back around today. BB himself, however, has been discharged from Truman by his father and taken to Atlanta, making the primary witness as good as nonexistent. This hasn’t stopped the incident from giving me a small heart attack in terms of my own accountability and making me feel like advocating for my students means putting my own ass on the line.

I got a phone call thirty minutes after the last bell from the principal asking me who was on the elevator with BB–what other students, was I on the elevator–and I was unable to answer most of her questions. I do not remember who was on what elevator over two weeks ago. I know SS was on the elevator with BB. I know BB wrote the incident up and mentioned in his report that he could name other students who were witnesses. Not that we can ask him, once again, because he is gone. All of a sudden this has become a priority of my principal, now that it is functionally too late to do anything about it.

SS remembers what happens. The other students whom he remembers being on the elevator with him and BB remember nothing. I sent them down to room 260 so they could tell the AP of Pupil Personnel Services that they don’t remember anything. My AP doesn’t remember who was on the elevator, Ms. P doesn’t remember who was on the elevator, Ms. L doesn’t remember who was on the elevator. I’ve convinced myself that I must have been on the elevator but got off before the incident happened just so I can have a story to tell the principal. I am, however, suddenly the point person in this “investigation,” so I’m the one who looks like she has no idea where her students are.

The situation is appalling. Nothing is going to happen. For a brief moment something could have been done about a cruel school employee who is infamous for his inappropriate comments to students. It’s hard not to look at the situation and see deliberate administrative mishandling in order to avoid taking responsibility for this man’s actions. In order to avoid responsibility. Perhaps to pin that responsibility on me.

Week 6: September 29-October 3

081004: Day 24
This week felt despairingly long. When I figure in the fact that we had Tuesday and Wednesday off, my despair grows. I made a big list of parents to call–from those of the kids in my first period who never make it there to those who have such consistent behavior problems it suggests something pathologically fucked up–and planned to use my eighth period to begin on the list. I had made but one phone call when FR came into my room to get the homework he is missing. If it’s not the big crises consuming my attention, it is little ones like this. I haven’t had more than 25 minutes of time to myself in school since the year started.

081002: Day 23
We–Ms. P, Ms. P and Ms. L–hosted an open house for the parents of our ninth graders. We had cookies, juice, folders filled with information, a beautiful powerpoint presentation, the principal, the assistant principal and the guidance counselor. We had fifteen parents. Those we met were kind, engaged and concerned about their children. But what about the parents of the other sixty students? What about the parents who RSVPed and then never showed up?

Also, I had my first observation of the year, in which I was criticized for everything from the colors in my powerpoint presentation to my relationship with the paraprofessional. I won’t say none of the criticism was helpful–much of it was–it just would have been nice to be recognized for any of the following things: my beautiful classroom; how well my students did with the lesson; the fact that the lesson was differentiated by readiness, interest and learning profile; my use of a rubric, as we are encouraged to do ALL the time; or my professional demeanor.

080929: Day 22
I recommend reviewing tests with kids. They LOVE to know the right answer.

Unfortunately for everyone in my graduate class, our classrooms were at least 80 or 85 degrees for the duration of Monday. My second class, for which we have a brilliant man who is an inept teacher, turned nasty for the third week in a row. Even Carol and I went over the edge, and we are pretty chill. Asking people who have worked a full day to complete a task they don’t fully understand, at a time nearing or past their bedtime, in a room that is at least 15 degrees too warm was too much for everyone. We got to leave early, thank god.

Week 5: September 22-26

080926: Day 21
The rain kept students at home, or made them late, or caused them to leave early. I can only imagine how the disaster of organizing binders would have been magnified if my classes had been fully attended. I do not know how to be clearer than to write a list of the order the papers go in, hold up a sample binder and walk around helping students find papers. Yet, my students could not organize their binders. I’m sure there’s some sort of processing difficulty, but this is also a giant listening problem. Again. How long will it take for me to teach them to listen?

080925: Day 20
I gave the first test of the year, but fourth period had to miss it because the principal called an assembly during fourth period for our students. On the elevator to the assembly, the elevator operator threatened to pull a knife on BB. I am actually inclined to believe BB, as many other students heard the operator and report that “that guy is always saying stuff like that.” I managed to get a phone number out of BB–his aunt’s, because his father’s doesn’t work right now–and then I had BB write an incident report so that we can deal with the problem appropriately. I have a more than adequate amount of empathy for the elevator operator: I can imagine how many kids shit talk him every day. But you cannot say inappropriate things to students. You particularly cannot say inappropriate things like that to students who are in special education due to their emotional problems. Our assistant principal has the report in her hands and is following up with the assistant principal of security.

I hope something comes of BB’s report. Despite my desire to kill him on occasion (empathy, again, for the elevator guy), if I as his teacher do not advocate for him now, he may drop off the map for the rest of high school. So I advocate.

080924: Day 19
I am quite the sadist. Yesterday, KC made my 4th period English unteachable for the third day in a row. Allow me to quote from the email I wrote to assorted assistant principals and administrators:

Friday, Monday and Tuesday–three days in a row–KC has made teaching my fourth period nearly impossible. His behavior today is representative of his behavior every day in my class. Today he entered class on time, but would not sit in his seat and stood in the doorway. He refused to take off his hat, even though I asked multiple times. After the bell rang, he continued to stand in the doorway and refused to sit down. When he finally sat down, he began to make loud screeching noises, pretending to be a dolphin. When I say loud I mean just shy of ear-splitting. He continued to put his hat on and then his hood on and I had to keep asking him to take them off. He then wandered around the room, asked to use the pass, and banged on the lockers at the back of the room when he returned to his seat. During this time he took no notes in my class and took a marker from a cup on my desk. He proceeded to use the marker to draw on one of my posters. When I asked him to return my marker, he became defensive. He told me if I tried to have him removed from my classroom that he would “tell Ms. N [the principal] you hit me and you stole my marker.” He then made a remark to suggest that he had done something similar with Ms. P–told the Principal on her–but Ms. P has no memory of this event.

The principal kindly emailed me back and we set up a time for KC to meet with her in her office. I was gleeful when I got a security officer to remove him from his sixth period Spanish class and walk him down to the principal’s office. Gleeful.

080923: Day 18
This is funny for many, many reasons. The most obvious is the effect that dyslexia had on the word “hellboy.” Even funnier, however, is that TT has so much anxiety and fear that he has only started smiling in the past week. And by smiling, I mean kind of, maybe smiling a little in my direction. Sweet, yes. But hellboy?

080922: Day 17
My feet have stopped hurting. Strange how it only took a couple weeks for the nerves in the balls of my feet to die again.