Ah, the quiet times

I've been quiet here only because I've been reassessing my entire job situation, going through the anger phase (their position is simply draconian!), the self-pity phase (When I think of all I've done for them…), the depressed phase (oops, there went the weekend and all I did was mope, eat and do crosswords) and finally coming into the creative solution phase (I'm going to swoop in with a totally new job description, completely eliminating everything I hate doing, and create my own new position)

Today the very man I wanted to pitch my new idea to, the Techno-Tzar for the entire school district, asked me for a ride, yes, stuck his thumb out, hitched up his pants to show a bit of ankle and wiggled his derriere. I sensed the time was ripe, despite the fact that my car smelled like a wet dog and the seat was so far forward that he had to scrunch himself in half to get in.

Once he was trapped inside my fetid pupmobile, I blurted out my pitch, offering to teach three design classes and spend the rest of my time training teachers, writing grants and coordinating websites for the district, instead of teaching night classes and goddamn video and going to inane meetings. He was so taken with the idea, he gushed that just training teachers would probably be enough. So, first hurdle cleared despite the fact that he was covered in musty dog hair by the time I dropped him off.

It didn't hurt that I had been in a meeting with him all day, formulating a new district technology plan so that we can go to the school board and ask for tons more money. I was assigned to work with two others drafting a new mission statement, and in addition to the usual lofty fluff, I had produced a pithy alternative, expressing what we really wanted to say, which I recited while suddenly, inexplicably seized with a Jamaican accent:

(XUSD= my school district)

We gots a new plan for da XUSD
It's a great big plan fo' da tec-no-lo-gee
It's gonna help de kids, and we know you like-a dat,
So you betta pull some mo-nay from you' big fat...hat.

It was well-received by my fellow meeting sufferers, who then accepted our 'real' mission statement without a change.

Meanwhile, back at school, a stranger with no computer skills or design knowledge was substituting in all my classes. I got back to a note telling me that one newly-blonde vixen had been caught visiting 'Lives of strippers' websites and regaling her fellow students with all-too-vivid snippets. She had been sassy and defiant when confronted. It seems she was impressed with their earning potential, because next day, when I asked this candidate-for-future-hootchie-mama about the incident, she said, "Oh, you mean my research project for Economics?"

They had been extremely busy, my little designers, cutting paper snowflakes, strings of hearts and paper dolls out of the pink scrap paper, festooning the room, strapping several to my desk with yards of tape bearing silly messages, like 'we love you miss bean, get well soon', "We want to have your children,' 'I love lamps' (huh?) decorated with little pictures. Oh yes, so glad I wrote elaborate instructions about what they were supposed to accomplish.

During office hours a sweet freshman boy came in to ask a favor. I hadn't met him, but I quickly connected his name with an email his proud father had recently sent, telling me about this son who was already making animated games and knew more programming than I will in three lifetimes. The boy had made a video for science class about the lives of a cell, and was having trouble with a technical glitch.

We put it in the DVD player and began to watch. It was like an elaborate Saturday Night Live skit, with costumes, characters, and props, shot against a green screen he had rigged up, so that he could superimpose people in front of different photos he had gotten off the internet. One part of the cell was personified as a club bouncer who wouldn't let salt past the membrane, but let sugar in. Another was a Godfather, stroking a lapdog as he gave orders to eliminate an intruder. It had a soundtrack. It was funny. It was better than any video any of my students has made all year. He is fourteen years old. Later, in the last period of the day, we went to a concert given by the school jazz ensemble, and there he was, doing a solo violin riff that brought down the house. This kid is going places.

During my 25-boy free-for-all video class, a terse note came from the vice principal, telling me to keep all my students inside. Campus guards herded in several whining boys who had been out filming, and suddenly several more had to go to the bathroom or get drinks or go to their lockers. I felt like I was trying to keep restless cattle in a corral without a gate, but I stood as tall as a five-foot-two person could and held them back. I had a funny feeling.

A counselor came around to all the classes with a message from the principal to be read aloud. A troubled freshman boy had brought a gun to school with several rounds of ammunition. One of his friends ratted him out and he was quickly carted away to the hospital to be 'evaluated.' He won't be back. The vice-principal later told me he was a drug baby raised by grandparents, and there were some synapses not firing. Kids told me he had taken money for sex with other boys in the bathroom and sold drugs, which might or might not be true. Tragic that his life trajectory could be so off-course by the age of fourteen.

But the drama wasn't over. The vice principal suddenly appeared in my room, with a burly man holding a black labrador on a leash. The drug sniffing dog had arrived to search the room for drugs and/or traces of gunpowder. Twenty-five boys were herded into the hallway while their backpacks stayed inside to be sniffed. Much to my surprise, he didn't turn up anything, and while my boys made jokes about that, drug dog and company moved on to the next class.

Another note arrived, this time summoning a model student to the office. A model student with a quirky wardrobe, he of the PJs and Homer Simpson bedroom slipper incident, the boy who once wore a sarong to school, not to be confused with the boy who wore a skirt. He was wearing his pajamas to school yet again because he had been up most of the night finishing a project, and there were snide remarks about the fashion police, but he didn't return. During my prep time he was escorted in by the guard to get his things. The drug dog had found something in his car, which turned out to be incense, but meanwhile they had found a small pocket knife in his glove compartment, so he was being suspended for having a weapon at school. Even the guard was livid about this. After pressure from parents, the administration came to their senses, and he returned to school, wearing a tight, bright yellow woman's pantsuit from the '70s and matching yellow sunglasses. He too did a solo turn at the jazz concert, on electric guitar, looking like a deranged rock star in a banana suit.

In my ongoing dispute with the administration over my schedule, my supervisor sincerely apologized to me for having addressed me as 'missy,' as in 'You're full time here, Missy," which took that thorn out of my side, but left me still determined to redefine my job, and find a way to change the principal's mind. And so ended my week at school in this sleepy little tourist community. We have a week off, in which I will attempt to recover, or perhaps regenerate would be a better word, so I can go back for more.