Teenagers Are Ridiculous

Goodbye 2013

2013-05-23T15:32:00.000-07:00

I haven't been the best at posting lately, sorry about that. I've had a lot of emotions happening and I've been very bad about processing them.

Tonight is graduation. I finally, after two years of not awesomeness, I get to say goodbye to the class of 2013. When last year happened, I wasn't sure I could survive in the classroom. But here I am, still chugging along, trying to do my job to the best of my ability.

While the school year was pretty OK, the end of the year as been a bit more difficult. My boss (my dept chair) is leaving, which is very sad for me. She has been my boss the entire time I've been at That One School, and has been incredibly supportive of me, both personally and professionally. One of my good friends is taking over as dept chair, so I'm happy about that, but the dept will be a different place.

Additionally, the thing that is really hard for me to talk about, is that my dearest friend, my partner in crime, my person, L, is leaving too. She decided she wanted to try something new, so she got a job at a school in another district, closer to where we live. I haven't completely processed it, meaning I haven't had my sobbing breakdown yet. I had dinner at her house last weekend and I brought her a cake, the super sugary icing kind she loves, and I told her it was her "fuck you for leaving" cake. Also her "congrats on a new job!" cake. Mostly the first one though. I am happy for her though, it's just hard to imagine my daily life without her.

I'm hopeful for next year. I loved my juniors this year, so I hope they'll be equally awesome as seniors. I'm not crazy about my schedule, but I hope it will all work out. I'm nervous about having a student teacher, but I'm hoping I can teach her something, and that I'll learn from her as well. There are a ton of changes coming in education. Some of them scare me, but that's a good thing. I'm hoping I'm up for the challenge. It will all be OK.

I have a bunch of posts I need to put up, so I won't be going anywhere for a while. Also, I'm running a summer camp for middle schoolers...so that will most certainly provide us all some entertainment for a while.

As always, thank you, dear readers, for your support and kindness for this random girl who has chosen to whine about her job. And for not thinking she's weird when she talks in the third person.

Final Exams, Part One

2013-05-21T16:24:00.000-07:00

Questions I'm tired of answering today:

Will you round my grade?

Will you take my late work?

Is your hair naturally curly?

What's on your shirt?

When we we get out of here?

Do I need to use a pencil on this Scantron?

And I have to do it all over again tomorrow.

She makes a good point.

2013-05-16T06:31:00.000-07:00

My seniors were working on their This I Believe papers, and I had them reading examples from the website. A girl, after reading some examples, whined to me, "I feel like these people probably had an easier time writing because they have actual problems, I just have silly white girl problems."

I laughed and high-fived her for her honesty.

I AM funny!

2013-05-15T06:29:00.000-07:00

A student has just told a story about going to Footlocker and how they were out of the shoes he wanted. He looked at me and asked if that ever happened to me. I responded, "Yeah, man, I'm always going to Footlocker and they're out of the Jordan's I want to rock. Man, that sucks."

Another boy looks over at me, nods approvingly and deadpans, "Wow, that was actually funny."

Maybe it was one of those things that was funnier if you were there?

The Rumor Mill

2013-05-14T06:27:00.000-07:00

A few weeks I may have inadvertently started a rumor that one of my co-workers has cancer. I swear, I didn't mean to!

He was out for a day at a doctor's appointment, because he had been having stomach pains. I was walking past his classroom and one of his students caught me and demanded to know where he was. I told him he was out today and the kid was all huffy about it because he needed to make up an exam. Annoyed at his attitude, I snapped at him, "Dude, he's at the doctor, he's having stomach pains, he might have stomach cancer, so get over yourself and deal with it tomorrow!" The kid stammered an apology and backed off. I promptly forgot about the conversation.

The next week I stopped by extra-curricular practice and a boy pulled me aside. He got really serious and asked, "Uh, so I'm not sure if I'm supposed to say anything but I heard from Girl who heard from Another Girl who heard from This Boy who was told by the kid from last week that Mr. - has cancer...what's going on?" He said everyone was talking about it, but no one wanted to ask, but he knew he could has me. I immediately let out a huge laugh and assured him that he didn't have cancer, that I was annoyed with the kid from last week.

I told the co-worker what happened and that he should either tell the kid the truth, or totally mess with him and continue the ruse. I think he continued the ruse for a day and then came clean.

Lesson learned: Don't lie to kids, I guess?

I don't take sass from anyone, much less sophomores.

2013-05-13T06:40:00.000-07:00

I subbed for a co-worker's class on Friday and halfway through the class I sent him this email...

Here's a fun convo I had with one of your sophomores...

Me: [Explains the handouts and whatnot.]

Girl: Ugh, Mr. ----- would!

Me: Would what? Give you work to do? Because you're in school and should be learning something?

Girl, rolling her eyes: That's not what I meant.

Me: Well, it's what you sounded like.

Saturday Special: Three Things, Vol. 13

2013-05-11T10:11:00.002-07:00

OK, so last week sort of got away from me. Sorry for the lack of posts. I'll make it up with a Three Things post!

1. Teen Wolf

Guys, I'm obsessed. I've had Teen Wolf on my Netflix queue since it was put on the site. I loved the movies, so I figured some day I'd try watching the show. It's pretty terrible, but I love it. It's full of disconcertingly pretty people, lots of teen drama, and cute clothes. I adore the opening credits. In the last week I've finished season 1 and I'm almost done with season 2. One of my co-workers also watches it and he's been more than happy to talk about it with me, which makes it more fun to watch. Also, I might have a quasi-inappropriate crush on the adorkable Dylan O'Brien, which is kind of OK because he's like 21 and not actually in high school. That makes is better, right? Also, Colton Haynes is insanely gorgeous. He's 25, so it's also OK.

2. Ree Drummond's Recipe for Sesame Noodles

I don't think I've ever put a recipe on a Three Things post, but this one is deserving. I love to cook, I don't know if I've ever talked about that. I'm pretty good at it too. I found this recipe on Pinterest last week and I made it twice. I added some rotisserie chicken, shredded carrots, and chili-garlic paste. Seriously, so delicious.

3. The Great Gatsby movie

If you've been reading this blog for a while, you'll Gatsby is my favorite book and has been since I was in high school. I love teaching it and it changes every time I read it. My co-workers and I have been anxiously awaiting the Baz Lurhman film version since it was put on IMDb years ago. Eventually all my expectations for the film were lost (around the time they pushed the release date back 6 months), but I've still been excited for it to come out. The movie was exactly what I thought it would be: sparkly and fun. It's reasonably faithful to the book. The Plaza scene is perfection. Leo is goddamn handsome I can't even deal with it. Tobey Maguire is the worst, but then again so is Nick Caraway. I'll definitely see it again at some point.

Maybe you're not worth it.

2013-05-06T06:21:00.000-07:00

A conversation with a senior that made me want to hit my head against the wall:

Kid: School is so not worth it.

Me: OK, why?

Kid: I stayed up until 3 last night writing a 5 page paper.

Me: Hmm. OK. When was it assigned?

Kid: Like 3 weeks ago.

Me: And I assume the paper is due today?

Kid: Yes.

Me: Oh. Then whose fault is it that?

Kid: I work six days a week. I don't have time to write a paper.

Me: I'm not even going to argue this with you because it would be pointless.

Saturday Special: Three Things, Vol. 12

2013-05-04T06:39:00.000-07:00

It's that time of year...PROM! So today we're going to do a special Three Things episode and talk about my favorite prom-centered movies. I only went to my junior prom and it wasn't that exciting. Movies make it seem like prom will be THE BEST NIGHT OF YOUR ENTIRE LIIIIIIIIIFE, when mostly it's just meh. I blame a lot of my prom hype on these three films:

1. Pretty in Pink

PiP is my all-time favorite 80s teen movie. You can have The Breakfast Club (which is awesome, don't get me wrong), but my Molly Ringwald/John Hughes collaboration of choice is Pretty in Pink. Terrible dads! Bitchy high school girls! AWFUL prom dresses! James Spader being an immense douche! I mean, Duckie. Love him. He started my life-long obsession with Otis Redding when I was 10. I would definitely pick Duckie over Blaine. Besides, Blaine isn't a name, it's a major appliance!

2. She's All That

90splosion! This movie came out my junior year of high school and I saw it in the theater...twice. Is it terrible? YES! Do I care? NO! Because of things like choreographed dance scenes, falafel, and Lil Kim's old face. And OMG the outfits! And references to old school The Real World. And Paul Walker being an immense douche (this seems to be a theme in teen movies...). The prom is pretty, sparkly, and looks pretty fun, until stupid teenage drama ruins it. Just like it ruins most things. This movie has every teen stereotype you can think of, but for some reason that just makes it all the better. Besides, everyone knows that if you take your hair out of the ponytail and take off your glasses, you'll be totally hot.

3. Saved!

Saved! is probably the best movie you've never seen (sorry, I got sort of hipstery there for a second). It's about a super Christian teenager who tries to save her boyfriend from being gay by having sex with him, and she ends up pregnant. As someone who grew up super Christian, and then quit church, it's a very honest look at what it's like to be a part of that crowd as a teen. I often tell people that if they want to understand why I am the way I am, they need to see this movie. Mandy Moore plays a pretty fantastic mean girl, Christian style. There's an awesome prom scene that involves driving into a giant Jesus statue.

Honorable Mentions...
10 Things I Hate About You (The only reason I teach Shakespeare's The Taming of the Shrew. Also: RIP Heath Ledger)
Footloose (The 80s one...OBVIOUSLY! Although I've seen the new one at least 5 times on Netflix.)
Never Been Kissed (The immense creepiness of this movie never hit me until I became a teacher. It also started my love affair with Michael Vartan, despite his awful hair in this movie.)
Mean Girls (Maybe the most quotable movie of all time. God Karen, you just can't ask people why they're white!)

What's your favorite prom movie?!

Maybe she meant it was a shitty war?

2013-05-03T06:38:00.000-07:00

Below is from an essay I graded earlier in the year. I was grading at my parents' house and I busted up laughed. I shared the essay with my parents. My dad's take...

"If she doesn't know the difference between defecating and devastating she's going to have a shitty life."

Broken

2013-05-02T18:37:00.001-07:00

Today was an impossible bad day. You know what a bad year I had last year with the class of 2013. Overall they've been better as seniors. Not today. Today they broke me. I can't handle them anymore. And we only have three weeks left. I just can't care about them anymore. They're terrible people. They don't care about anything. They openly cheat and whine and laze and say terrible awful things.

How do I survive our remaining time together?

Sounds like sex ed is really working out well...

2013-05-01T06:35:00.000-07:00

Email from K...

Here's an awkward call convo I overheard with freshmen today...

Girl: I don't want to have a baby! Something this big <gestures> comes out of a hole this big <gestures>!

Boy: A HOLE? I thought it was, like, a slit.

That's not a thing.

2013-04-30T06:44:00.000-07:00

I can't remember the back story to this, I just remember a kid in one of my classes last week asking:

"Did she have a sex transplant?"

I had to stop for a second and ask, "Do you mean a sex change operation?"

He said yes, and I gently reminded him that a "sex transplant isn't a thing, also it's called sex reassignment surgery now".

Shakespeare, you saucy minx!

2013-04-29T07:01:00.000-07:00

A couple of weeks ago I subbed for a colleague who teaches freshmen. They were watching the 1996 version of "Romeo and Juliet" (which is the best version...OBVIOUSLY!). I was g-chatting with a friend and this is what I told her...

Me: oh man, we're at the sexy part of R&J

and by "the sexy part" I mean two teenagers having sex

and the freshmen are totally uncomfortable, it's hilarious

they're all giggling

And this is why I teach the older kids.

Those could be words, right?

2013-04-26T06:44:00.000-07:00

Sometimes I'm not so good with words and the sentences and the putting words together in sentences and stuff and things. Oftentimes I'll make up words in class and then just stop, think, and nod, pretending like what I said totally just made sense. For example, two words I made up this week:

Mapamatical

Presentationers

Having a degree in English means I can make up words, right?

Can you imagine if Nick had a Facebook?

2013-04-25T06:48:00.000-07:00

This was on Failbook yesterday and I thought it was too good not to share.

Source

Way to go, Hermoine!

2013-04-24T06:44:00.000-07:00

Emma Watson won some award on some MTV award show last week and I read an article about her acceptance speech, which included the following quote:

"Becoming yourself is really hard and confusing, and it's a process. I was completely the eager beaver in school, I was the girl in the front of the class who was the first person to put her hand up, and it's often not cool to be the person that puts themself out there, and I've often gotten teased mercilessly, but I found that ultimately if you truly pour your heart into what you believe in — even if it makes you vulnerable — amazing things can and will happen."

This is going on the wall in my classroom.

That question has an answer: NO.

2013-04-23T06:22:00.000-07:00

A conversation with a senior boy after I told him to stop drawing penises on his friend's assignment.

Me: Why, why is that necessary? Why?

Kid: It's like one of those things, like "Why is the sky blue?" or "Why do guys draw penises on other guys' things?"

Me: So it's like one of the true questions of the universe?

Kid: Exactly.

He was almost right...

2013-04-22T06:01:00.000-07:00

The other day a kid was trying to explain something about his chemistry class, and I told him I understood because I took science at one point too.

His response? "Yeah, like 17 years ago!"

Then I reminded myself that I took chemistry 15 years ago and I felt old. Oh teenagers.

Saturday Special: Three Things, Vol. 11

2013-04-20T12:35:00.002-07:00

1. The "Georgia Peach" Martini

I discovered this recipe on Pinterest at the end of last summer and it became my go-to drink at home for a while. Now that it's nearly summer again, it's the perfect refreshing summer drink. All the ingredients are liquors I always have in my house. Recipe: 1 oz Coconut Rum, 1 oz Peach Schnapps, 1 oz vodka, 2 oz Ginger Ale. YUM!

2. Sara Bareilles' new song "Brave"

I LOVE Sara Bareilles, even though it has taken me years to learn how to spell her last name. I'm super excited about her new album and was happy last week when the first single was released.

3. Marisa de los Santos' book Falling Together

I bought this book for my Kindle several months ago, but I finally got around to reading it when I was at my parents' house for the weekend a few weeks ago. I liked her first book, Love Walks In, and I really liked the sequel to LWI, Belong To Me (which, I just discovered, is $1.99 on Kindle today!!). I had a hard time putting this one down, and spent most of a Sunday reading on the back patio. The prose is gorgeous, the story is compelling, and I completely fell in love with each of the characters. My favorite passage..."He wasn’t looking at her, was at such an oblique angle to her that his face was little more than a sliver, but she knew him at once. 'It was like reading,' she would try to explain later, and she wasn’t talking about phonics. She didn’t break him into syllables—shoulders, hair, shirt collar, hand, nose, cheekbone—and put him back together again; she didn’t sound him out. He was a language she knew, and it was whole-word recognition: Will."

Read the ten previous Three Things posts here.

Maybe they're just a relaxed kind of team?

2013-04-19T06:53:00.000-07:00

An email from K:

We're doing an activity where the kids have to listen to music and draw what they hear. I played a clip from Amelie and when we're done one of the boys said "I like this song. I should listen to it before basketball."

(This might explain why our team's losing record.)

Does that mean I should have been acting grown-up for the past 7 years?

2013-04-18T06:41:00.000-07:00

The other day I overheard a junior say, "Yeah, but like, when I'm grown up. You know, when I'm like 25."

Is 25 the official age for being a grown-up?

It's like a YA novel up in here!

2013-04-17T06:09:00.000-07:00

So this happened last night. I had a parent booster meeting for my extra-curricular. The parents (mostly moms) are super nice and awesome. They're really funny and I really enjoy spending time with them.

One of the moms has a daughter who is (was) dating a boy on the team. The boy and I have gotten pretty close over the past two years. We're both very sarcastic and not very nice, which makes us good friends. He came to me last week and wanted to talk about his girlfriend, who he was thinking of breaking up with. They had been together for over two years, but he was leaving the country for college and he was ready to end it. I told him to do whatever was best for him, because, at 17, that's the best advice to receive. You're young and wild and free (ugh, Wiz Khalifa, why are you even a person?) and you should do what's right for you.

The mom, after the meeting, asked me if I had heard the big news, that the boy had broken up with the girl over the weekend. I thought about feigning surprise, but I decided to be honest.

"So, here's the thing..." I started sheepishly, "Boy came me to last week about this. We had a long talk. I told him to do what was right for him. So, um, sorry I told him to break up with your daughter..."

The mom laughed loudly, "Oh my god, thank you so much! I'm so glad you told him to do that!!" She went on about how the family loves the kid, he's basically a staple in their house, but she knows it was for the best. Her daughter is heartbroken, obviously, but she knows she will get over it and move on.

I texted the boy on the way home and told him I'd heard and asked him if he was OK. He said yes, that it was a rough weekend, which is understandable.

So I guess today I'm M: Breaker of Relationships and Snatcher of Happiness. Or I'm just someone who really loves my students and wants them to live the best life possible. One of the two.

Romeo and Juliet and Chuck Bass?

2013-04-16T06:56:00.000-07:00

The trailer for the new Romeo and Juliet was released last week sometime. I have a love/hate relationship with R&J. I love the dirty jokes. I love the witty lines. I hate that people think it's a romance and fawn all over it. It's not a romance, it's about two moronic teenagers who commit suicide. I went the trailer to a friend who teaches in another state, as she just started the play with her freshmen.

(Whatever positive reviews this movie gets will be hampered by the fact that Chuck Bass (aka Date Raper Extraordinaire (why does everyone forget that he tried to date rape at least two people in the first season?!?!) from Gossip Girl) is Tybalt. Yeah, sometimes my parentheticals get out of control.)

This is the conversation we had:

S: Looks boring.
Me: Hold your tongue, Romeo and Juliet is the GREATEST LOVE STORY EVER TOLD...about 14 year old olds who are fucking idiots.
S: Seriously. The greatest love story ever told about a whiny fuck of a teenager who was in love with someone else and then decided he was in love with a 13 year old after he met her for 2 min at a party and then stalked her outside of her bedroom.
Me: Exactly. And then the stupid fuckers kill themselves, because THAT'S WHAT LOVE IS.
S: Totally.

Me: Dramaaaaaaa!

S: Love is what your parents don't want you to have.

Me: Perfect.

Yes, I stole that line from Lucille Bluth.

2013-04-15T06:02:00.000-07:00

A conversation in one my senior classes last week...

Kid #1: Where does this story take place?

Me: We don't know, but we do know it's by the sea, and the author is from Latin America, so we can assume it takes place there.

Kid #1: So, like, Portugal or something?

Me: Well, Portugal is in Europe, so probably not.

Kid #2: Oh, Spain then.

Me: Still in Europe.

Kid #3: When you said earlier that sometimes we make you want to light yourself on fire, is this what you were talking about?

Me: Oh, most definitely.

(I use that line a lot. Thanks Lucille.)