I'm alive.

Just got my classroom assignment today.  Room 515.  I'm very excited to be assigned to a classroom finally.  The thought of kids filling the desks and learning with me fills me in a way nothing else can.

I'm officially a single mom now, which makes life substantially more difficult, but not impossible.  It's easy to place blame and difficult to maintain optimism in times like these, but life, despite its hiccups, is truly beautiful.

More blogging to come soon.  I'm in a much better place this week.

...As in, IT'S OFFICIAL, BITCHES.  I GOT MYSELF A JOB!!!!

It's embarassing how easy it was, actually.  I'm probably not the poster child for my program, which advocates pulling yourself up by your bootstraps and finding your own position during the summer.

Here's the situation:  I was placed in a summer reading program for my teaching training under an amazing, supportive teacher who decided to talk me up to her principal.  The principal, being a proactive (albeit quirky) woman, decided against waiting for me to officially submit my resume and instead cold-called me and asked for an interview.

I got the call Tuesday.  I interviewed Wednesday.  It was a complicated and emotional week in which I was sure that I had the job and equally as sure that I didn't have the job.  Today, while I was stuffing my face with pesto penne pasta and gabbing with my buddy Sacha, the phone rang.  It was an official person from the school district, giving me an official job offer.

HOT DAMN!  Basically, in a nutshell, I'm awesome.    Kidding.  Not that I'm not awesome.  It just so happens that I'm incredibly lucky.  I could have been assigned to any number of other teachers who wouldn't have talked me up and I'd still be job hunting.  As it is, the job hunt is over for me and I'm sitting pretty right now, trying my best to learn all I can and not fuck anything up before I get my own scalliwags in August.

Oh, and in case you're wondering what position I received, it's a Junior High English Language Arts Resource/Inclusion teaching position.  If you actually care what all of that means, let me know and I'll detail my job description more for you.

But for now, congratulations are in order!!!!  Now it's my job to support all of my other teaching buddies as they go through the interviewing process.  With two exceptions, I think everyone I'm training with will make outstanding teachers.

ROCK ON!

There's a kid in my class who hates independent reading because he thinks all the book choices are "too boring."  I asked him what books he had at home, and he said, "the dictionary."  I asked him if he could find something in our piles and piles of YA fiction and non-fiction, and he shook his head no.

Finally, after exhausting all other options, I asked him what he'd like to read if he had access to all books.

"Call of the Wild," James said, without missing a beat.

Call of the Wild?  A wolf book?  This is a skater kid who draws skulls and crossbones on his arms every day in class.  I told him I'd try to locate one for him.

That was on Monday.  Yesterday morning two burly security guards came to my class, cuffed James and took him away.  I found Call of the Wild for $1.98 last night at Half Price Books and bought it, hoping against all reason that James would be back today.

He wasn't.  His ex-girlfriend, who was also in our class briefly, accused him of raping her after school on Tuesday, and he's been expelled from summer school for "suspicion."  I'd be shocked if he took advantage of her, but then again, I've never been inside a pubescent boy's mind.  I'll probably never see him again, but I'm keeping Call of the Wild in my car just in case.  If I could, I'd mail it to him, but I'm not sure how that would go over.

On the plus side, my nine remaining students that haven't been arrested or expelled this summer seem to be enjoying reading.  I've started implementing some new learning tactics under the guise of "games," and they're a big hit!  Every day I hit amazing highs and extreme lows.  It's hard not to get invested in kids.