September 24: It was so hot that no classroom turned on their lights today so they wouldn’t add any extra degrees. At recess, I had the spray bottle and they surrounded me. I felt like I was fending off a hoard of zombies with nothing but a sawed off shotgun. It got a little easier when I told them they had to compliment me in order to get sprayed. “You’re pretty!” Nancy yelled. “You’re the best teacher in the school!” Allisson added. “I know where you live!” L’madja yelled.
September 25: It was hotter than yesterday and Ana turned the hose on the children. They loved it, and when they were soaked, they surrounded me and group hugged me until I was just as drenched as they were. The more I shouted at how slimy they all felt, the tighter they hugged me.
September 26: Allisson came to visit me in the bungalow during snack again. She brought in some artwork to show to me. She drew Trump’s wall, a mass of bricks with curled barbed wire stretched across the top. Above it all, she drew a dozen of butterflied flying free, so high that the sharp edges couldn’t touch them.
September 27: Jai’von has been drawing portraits of people in his class. When we were waiting for his mom, he showed me his illustrations of Luna, Umali, and Milo. I jokingly asked him when he was goin to draw me. He answered that he hadn’t done that yet because he doesn’t know how to draw pimples.
September 28: Every time I think about the holiday season coming up, I fill with dread knowing that it means I will need to interact with his family. That’s how bad this situation has gotten. I’m literally scared of holidays.
September 29: I’m only a few months into 30 and I’m already having back problems. I think I have a pinched nerve. It feels fine when I’m not doing much, but if I turn, a wave of pain shoots through my entire spine. It woke me up multiple times last night and has succeeded in convincing me that I might actually have a spinal injury and that in the morning, I might wake up and find my body paralyzed from the neck down.
September 30: Edwin dropped our program and I have another new student. Her name is Cynthia and she moved here this week. Her teacher assured me she will be a great addition to my program, which I’m sure she is, but I’m having trouble keeping up with how much my class roster keeps changing.
much love,
hedgie
Monday, September 30, 2019
Monday, September 23, 2019
a toilet that poops butts
September 17: When Kiara is my last kid, we play a game while waiting for her mom to show up. All she has to do is not laugh. She hasn’t been able to go over ten seconds without erupting into giggles. I don’t even have to do anything, she just can’t contain her laughter. I suspect she even giggles in her sleep.
September 18: We are entirely out of bouncy balls except for the one that is roughly the same size as a kinder student. We started out the school year with one for each class. But each week, one kid gets angry during recess and purposefully kicks it over the fence to get back at the people annoying them. It isn’t until the next recess the day after that they realize that means they have nothing to play with now either.
September 19: My kids are obsessed with the weirdest things about people. They don’t care to know what I do when I go home or what I majored in when I was in college. But they do insist on knowing what tea I have in my thermos every day.
September 20: Turns out my fourth graders will gladly sit down to do their homework if there is a timer set for ten minutes and they try to challenge themselves to finish before the alarm goes off. Not sure why they seem to think it’s fun, but they are weirdly their best behaved when I’m forcing them to do their math sheets.
September 21: Nick told our Google Home to play fall music. It found a playlist made on YouTube. Half an hour in, it played a song about how effortlessly beautiful a woman was. It described the stars in her eyes and the thrill of touching her. It started making me cry, knowing that songs like that are never written about girls like me.
September 22: I don’t know if it’s because of the personal therapy and getting confirmation that I am not crazy, but I can feel all my sadness making a transition into anger. Anger that people thought it was okay to treat me this way for so long and anger that I had accepted it too.
September 23: To introduce the “Our Stories: Circles of Me” unit, I had them play Three-headed story teller. It’s a game where groups of people have to work together to tell a story. Each person can only say one and they take turns as if they were a three-headed monster in a King Arthur story. Their story ended up going: A poop cat named Turdface Butt lived in a doghouse with a toilet that pooped butts. I’m not sure what else I expected.
much love,
hedgie
September 18: We are entirely out of bouncy balls except for the one that is roughly the same size as a kinder student. We started out the school year with one for each class. But each week, one kid gets angry during recess and purposefully kicks it over the fence to get back at the people annoying them. It isn’t until the next recess the day after that they realize that means they have nothing to play with now either.
September 19: My kids are obsessed with the weirdest things about people. They don’t care to know what I do when I go home or what I majored in when I was in college. But they do insist on knowing what tea I have in my thermos every day.
September 20: Turns out my fourth graders will gladly sit down to do their homework if there is a timer set for ten minutes and they try to challenge themselves to finish before the alarm goes off. Not sure why they seem to think it’s fun, but they are weirdly their best behaved when I’m forcing them to do their math sheets.
September 21: Nick told our Google Home to play fall music. It found a playlist made on YouTube. Half an hour in, it played a song about how effortlessly beautiful a woman was. It described the stars in her eyes and the thrill of touching her. It started making me cry, knowing that songs like that are never written about girls like me.
September 22: I don’t know if it’s because of the personal therapy and getting confirmation that I am not crazy, but I can feel all my sadness making a transition into anger. Anger that people thought it was okay to treat me this way for so long and anger that I had accepted it too.
September 23: To introduce the “Our Stories: Circles of Me” unit, I had them play Three-headed story teller. It’s a game where groups of people have to work together to tell a story. Each person can only say one and they take turns as if they were a three-headed monster in a King Arthur story. Their story ended up going: A poop cat named Turdface Butt lived in a doghouse with a toilet that pooped butts. I’m not sure what else I expected.
much love,
hedgie
Monday, September 16, 2019
too much power
September 9: Mr. Diego has been sent around the different classrooms to watch how all of us teach and keep order in our rooms. My kids scare him the most so far. Apparently, without any prompting, Luna turned to him and told him that ruining lives was kid of her thing.
September 10: At the end of recess, our students separated to go to their electives. All the girls in my Girl Power swarmed towards me, screaming. Vivi thought it was hilarious that I was momentarily worried about my safety. She told me next time to hold up my hands and yell, “Too much power! Too much power!”
September 11: My kids begged me to show them videos of the 9/11 Twin Tower attacks. I told them I didn’t really feel comfortable doing that because watching that kind of thing is very different for the people who lived through that time. I didn’t want to relive how I watched footage of the towers falling when I was pouring a bowl of cereal for breakfast, how so many of my friends were kept home from school that day, how none of my teachers seemed to know what to do and we spent most of the class periods that day watching the news on the TVs that hung in the corner of the room. Miss Connie told us how she was actually talking on the phone with a friend in New York when it happened. The line suddenly went dead and then she turned to a TV and saw what was happening. Miss Jen was at her house when a friend came running in, screaming “We’re under attack! We’re under attack!” My kids seemed disappointed by my response, but by the time it was snack, they had forgotten they wanted to see it at all.
September 12: Today, I was upstaged by a worm. Ms. Mesa needed the classroom during electives, so I had to teach Girl Power in Precita Park. The lesson was quickly ignored when we sat in the grass and a girl found a worm in a patch of dirt. They all swarmed around it and ignored me. It got to the point where I picked it up and moved it to a new dirt patch, which made them all scream with disgust that I was touching it. For the rest of the lesson, when they thought I wasn’t looking, pairs of them would try to sneak off to the new dirt patch to get another peek at it.
September 13: Orlando was not invited to be a Jr. Coach again this year, but a lot of kids in his class were. He’s been talking about it all week, wondering why this was happening to him. I felt bad and invented a new job for him during program. He will help Mr. Diego get the play equipment before recess starts, help distribute them, and be in charge of collecting it all and putting it back in the shed. When I asked him if this was something he would be interested in, he got so excited. He gave me the biggest smile and hugged me. I need to hold onto the smile for awhile because I have a feeling before the end of the week I am going to want to throw his phone out the window while he watches.
September 14:
September 16: I put “Heads Up” as one of my play centers when homework is done. There’s about a hundred cards for them to choose from and act out, but they choose the same dozen nouns over and over again. One of them is the song “Single Ladies” by Beyonce. They sang it so much that they asked me to play the music video for them. While watching it, I remembered all the stupid drama about it that happened between Kanye West and Taylor Swift during the MTV Music Video Awards. One of my kids noticed the post date of this video was in 2008. “Wow,” she said. “That’s the year I was born.” I have never felt older.
much love,
hedgie
September 10: At the end of recess, our students separated to go to their electives. All the girls in my Girl Power swarmed towards me, screaming. Vivi thought it was hilarious that I was momentarily worried about my safety. She told me next time to hold up my hands and yell, “Too much power! Too much power!”
September 11: My kids begged me to show them videos of the 9/11 Twin Tower attacks. I told them I didn’t really feel comfortable doing that because watching that kind of thing is very different for the people who lived through that time. I didn’t want to relive how I watched footage of the towers falling when I was pouring a bowl of cereal for breakfast, how so many of my friends were kept home from school that day, how none of my teachers seemed to know what to do and we spent most of the class periods that day watching the news on the TVs that hung in the corner of the room. Miss Connie told us how she was actually talking on the phone with a friend in New York when it happened. The line suddenly went dead and then she turned to a TV and saw what was happening. Miss Jen was at her house when a friend came running in, screaming “We’re under attack! We’re under attack!” My kids seemed disappointed by my response, but by the time it was snack, they had forgotten they wanted to see it at all.
September 12: Today, I was upstaged by a worm. Ms. Mesa needed the classroom during electives, so I had to teach Girl Power in Precita Park. The lesson was quickly ignored when we sat in the grass and a girl found a worm in a patch of dirt. They all swarmed around it and ignored me. It got to the point where I picked it up and moved it to a new dirt patch, which made them all scream with disgust that I was touching it. For the rest of the lesson, when they thought I wasn’t looking, pairs of them would try to sneak off to the new dirt patch to get another peek at it.
September 13: Orlando was not invited to be a Jr. Coach again this year, but a lot of kids in his class were. He’s been talking about it all week, wondering why this was happening to him. I felt bad and invented a new job for him during program. He will help Mr. Diego get the play equipment before recess starts, help distribute them, and be in charge of collecting it all and putting it back in the shed. When I asked him if this was something he would be interested in, he got so excited. He gave me the biggest smile and hugged me. I need to hold onto the smile for awhile because I have a feeling before the end of the week I am going to want to throw his phone out the window while he watches.
September 14:
Thinking back on my characters in Panning for Pyrite, they all seemed trapped between two worlds, not sure where they fit in. Olivia is caught in between countries, too dark to pass for American and too disconnected from her roots to be Filipino. Miles is caught in between where he is and where he wants to be, full of dreams of travel and love, but stuck in a dead-end job and taking care of his estranged father. Irving is caught between this world and the next, feeling guilty for surviving when others didn’t and feeling like he didn’t deserve this extra opportunity.
Songs: Olivia“Wish I could Forget” and “Not Dead Yet” by The Weepies
Miles, “In the Meantime” by The Ditty Bops
Irving, “Roscoe” by Midlake
September 15: It’s impossible to ignore when this much time has passed. How could it be possible for this number of people to dislike me for over a decade if there wasn’t something deeply unlovable about me? It feels like I am begging them to treat me with basic human kindness and they find that too much to ask for. I get all the pressure to do all the work to make things better. Then when I can’t fix a two-way relationship on my own, I get all the blame. I am automatically set up for failure and there is nothing I can do about it.Miles, “In the Meantime” by The Ditty Bops
Irving, “Roscoe” by Midlake
September 16: I put “Heads Up” as one of my play centers when homework is done. There’s about a hundred cards for them to choose from and act out, but they choose the same dozen nouns over and over again. One of them is the song “Single Ladies” by Beyonce. They sang it so much that they asked me to play the music video for them. While watching it, I remembered all the stupid drama about it that happened between Kanye West and Taylor Swift during the MTV Music Video Awards. One of my kids noticed the post date of this video was in 2008. “Wow,” she said. “That’s the year I was born.” I have never felt older.
much love,
hedgie
Sunday, September 8, 2019
there's literally nothing i can do about it
September 1: The couple in the apartment next door brought their newborn baby home from the hospital today. We saw the husband while we were walking Addie and he wondered if we had been hearing the baby through the walls. He seemed surprised that we hadn’t noticed anything different. “Well, let me know if it ever gets too loud for you guys,” he told us. “But there’s literally nothing I can do about it.”
September 2: George and I walked ahead of Nick and Addie. Nick told me later that while that happened, Addie was watching us the whole time. He said that a woman passed by us and she gave a soft growl. Because I have been in San Francisco so long, it took a few more seconds of conversation for me to realize that Nick meant that Addie had growled, not the woman who passed me.
September 3: Before he walked home, David made a point of coming into my classroom to hug me goodbye. I miss him in my class so much.
September 4: It was a dramatic time during day school. One of the teachers got ringworm and the police were called when the people on behavior duty couldn’t find two lost students who turned out to be in a classroom the entire time.
September 5: My class got a punishment of practicing lining up for two minutes during recess when they kept trying to shove each other off the benches attached to the lunch tables. When I announced that, one boy screamed “fuck!” right in my ear. I thought it was Dea’madja and he spent his recess with Miss Melissa, proclaiming his innocence. I found out I had accused the wrong kid when Mauricio was overheard bragging that Dea’madja was getting in trouble for something he had done. Vivi was right. That kid is sneaky.
September 6: Every Friday during snack, I pull out two raffle tickets from the prize box. Every Friday, my kids want to be the ones to pick the tickets, but I don’t let them. I tell them that this is because raffle drawings are one of the few things I do that doesn’t make them upset and I’m not giving that away. The truth is that I pre-plan which two students will win the drawing every week. There’s a secret pouch where I put the pre-selected winning tickets so that I can hold the box over my head to prove I’m not peeking. I’m surprised that none of them have picked up on the fact that everyone in the class wins once before anyone wins a second time.
September 7: When I meet people for the first time, after finding out their name, I try to get to know them a little. I ask them what their job is or how they know the person we are there to celebrate. The first thing people ask me is about what race I am, like that is the most important factor to figuring out who I am as a person. A lot of times, they way they word it is hurtful. They ask “What are you?” And every time, I just want to look at them confused and answer, “I’m a human. Why? What are you?”
September 8: My new therapist suggested that I send her some of my writing because it’s been helpful with some of her other writer patients. It was weird reading through the short stories I wrote in college. I wasn’t expecting them to seem so sad to me now. All of them were about people who didn’t fit in with the world around them and had trouble finding a safe place to call home. I wonder how I didn’t see that when I was writing them.
much love,
hedgie
September 2: George and I walked ahead of Nick and Addie. Nick told me later that while that happened, Addie was watching us the whole time. He said that a woman passed by us and she gave a soft growl. Because I have been in San Francisco so long, it took a few more seconds of conversation for me to realize that Nick meant that Addie had growled, not the woman who passed me.
September 3: Before he walked home, David made a point of coming into my classroom to hug me goodbye. I miss him in my class so much.
September 4: It was a dramatic time during day school. One of the teachers got ringworm and the police were called when the people on behavior duty couldn’t find two lost students who turned out to be in a classroom the entire time.
September 5: My class got a punishment of practicing lining up for two minutes during recess when they kept trying to shove each other off the benches attached to the lunch tables. When I announced that, one boy screamed “fuck!” right in my ear. I thought it was Dea’madja and he spent his recess with Miss Melissa, proclaiming his innocence. I found out I had accused the wrong kid when Mauricio was overheard bragging that Dea’madja was getting in trouble for something he had done. Vivi was right. That kid is sneaky.
September 6: Every Friday during snack, I pull out two raffle tickets from the prize box. Every Friday, my kids want to be the ones to pick the tickets, but I don’t let them. I tell them that this is because raffle drawings are one of the few things I do that doesn’t make them upset and I’m not giving that away. The truth is that I pre-plan which two students will win the drawing every week. There’s a secret pouch where I put the pre-selected winning tickets so that I can hold the box over my head to prove I’m not peeking. I’m surprised that none of them have picked up on the fact that everyone in the class wins once before anyone wins a second time.
September 7: When I meet people for the first time, after finding out their name, I try to get to know them a little. I ask them what their job is or how they know the person we are there to celebrate. The first thing people ask me is about what race I am, like that is the most important factor to figuring out who I am as a person. A lot of times, they way they word it is hurtful. They ask “What are you?” And every time, I just want to look at them confused and answer, “I’m a human. Why? What are you?”
September 8: My new therapist suggested that I send her some of my writing because it’s been helpful with some of her other writer patients. It was weird reading through the short stories I wrote in college. I wasn’t expecting them to seem so sad to me now. All of them were about people who didn’t fit in with the world around them and had trouble finding a safe place to call home. I wonder how I didn’t see that when I was writing them.
much love,
hedgie
Saturday, August 31, 2019
until they graduate from elementary school
August 25: Nick keeps telling me that when he tells his coworkers about my job, they want him to relay to me how much they appreciate the work I do. Each time, I just really want to ask them exactly what they are doing to show that appreciation. Are they doing something active about it or just shooting off a vague secondhand compliment to someone they have never seen?
August 26: Today, I was surprised to discover that I am getting a new student. I was not informed until after he was already in my class. It’s hard to tell what to make of Raoul so far. He’s hasn’t talked much and he cried already, but he also got really into classroom agreements Jeopardy and told me his whole life story within the first few hours of knowing him.
August 27: I would have thought by now my kids would have learned to take the things I say with a grain of salt. But, for some reason, they always accept my remarks without any hesitation. Fernando told me earlier that they are all really convinced that what I said about how I became the fifth grade teacher was true. They all believe that we were fighting over who go to be with them. They truly think that Melissa put us through a series of tests to see who would win the opportunity to be their teacher and that I won the arm wrestling contest, the pop quiz, the karaoke contest, and the foot race, but that he won the dance contest.
August 28: Every day this week, the man who lives in the house on the other side of the back yard wall has been yelling at the children. He climbs up a ladder to tell them all to be quiet. A few parents have been fighting with him. Apparently, he has been living there for years and has on and off spells of being weird about it.
August 29: Luna, Milo, and Joanna borrowed my phone at recess. They took selfies and made themselves my lock screen and my background. They told me that I’m not allowed to change either of them until they graduate from elementary school.
August 30: We had our first Fun Friday already. When asked how many children we should prepare for, we were only told “quite a few”. We ended up with 60, twice as much as we were usually sent. It didn’t help that most of them had just come in from recess. They were all overheated and their warm little hands made the slime we handed them instantly melt back into glue.
August 31: I was hoping to get through the first meeting with the new therapist without crying. I think I lasted about ten minutes.
much love,
hedgie
August 26: Today, I was surprised to discover that I am getting a new student. I was not informed until after he was already in my class. It’s hard to tell what to make of Raoul so far. He’s hasn’t talked much and he cried already, but he also got really into classroom agreements Jeopardy and told me his whole life story within the first few hours of knowing him.
August 27: I would have thought by now my kids would have learned to take the things I say with a grain of salt. But, for some reason, they always accept my remarks without any hesitation. Fernando told me earlier that they are all really convinced that what I said about how I became the fifth grade teacher was true. They all believe that we were fighting over who go to be with them. They truly think that Melissa put us through a series of tests to see who would win the opportunity to be their teacher and that I won the arm wrestling contest, the pop quiz, the karaoke contest, and the foot race, but that he won the dance contest.
August 28: Every day this week, the man who lives in the house on the other side of the back yard wall has been yelling at the children. He climbs up a ladder to tell them all to be quiet. A few parents have been fighting with him. Apparently, he has been living there for years and has on and off spells of being weird about it.
August 29: Luna, Milo, and Joanna borrowed my phone at recess. They took selfies and made themselves my lock screen and my background. They told me that I’m not allowed to change either of them until they graduate from elementary school.
August 30: We had our first Fun Friday already. When asked how many children we should prepare for, we were only told “quite a few”. We ended up with 60, twice as much as we were usually sent. It didn’t help that most of them had just come in from recess. They were all overheated and their warm little hands made the slime we handed them instantly melt back into glue.
August 31: I was hoping to get through the first meeting with the new therapist without crying. I think I lasted about ten minutes.
much love,
hedgie
Saturday, August 24, 2019
love yourself
August 18:
August 20: Edwin fell asleep about two minutes into meditation. He slept for an hour, right through our chapter book reading, Camp Read-A-Lot, homework, and cleanup. He is much easier to deal with when he is unconscious.
August 21: The instructions said it would take 15 minutes to build the new equipment shed. Our last one broke halfway through the last school year when the part lock latch fell off. Kids spent their recesses shoving each other inside and then leaning against the door so no one could escape. The new one all pops into place with no hinges or nails. It’s so flimsy that the smart kids will be able to bypass the lock, find a seam, and pop it apart with their bare hands.
August 22: At the start of the week, I warned the entire class that I would not be buying replacements for any of the toys that they break. They already popped one of the squish toys. They kept feeding all the liquid through on tiny hole in the fishnet and the net dug into it until it started leaking green goo everywhere. It didn’t even last one full week with them.
August 23: Now that Vivi has Jai’von in her class, she has been the subject of his mom’s resentment. When closing time came and went, Vivi called her to see if she was on her way and how long it would take for her to get here. As soon as she arrived, she started yelling at Vivi for harassing her. Vivi managed to hold it together in from of Jai’von, but as soon as they were out the door, she was the angriest I have ever seen her in the three years we have worked together. She threw he things into her purse shouting that she was wasn’t going to be taking that kind of shit from her.
August 24: I always felt like I stuck out in Orange County. I was too Filipino to be seen as American by most of the people in town. When I went to Chapman, I went to a meeting of the Asian and Pacific Islander Club. I was excited to finally find a place where I felt like I belonged. But when I got there, the Asian side told me that I wasn’t one of them, I was Pacific Islander. The Pacific Islander side told me I didn’t fit in with them either, that I was actually considered Asian.
I didn’t go to a second meeting.
much love,
hedgie
If anyone every asks me for the favorite book with an explanation—
The Orchid Thief:
I have always been drawn to peoples’ obsessions and hobbies, the things they choose to be a part of during their few moments of spare time. They often lead to an entire world I knew nothing about with rules and rulers that don’t apply anywhere else. People invest so much time, money, and effort into hobbies they love and it often comes out looking so strange to people who are not a part of it. I always find it fascinating that there are these epic, life-changing events happening right next to us. There are victories, defeats, scandals, and fame—half the time we never even notice that something wonderful or tragic is playing out. These obsessions showed me to never take things at face value. There are stories that seem ordinary and straight-forward but if you keep looking into it, you find facts that flip everything over. What makes a person spend thousands of dollars buying customized wet suits and surfboards so that they can surf with their dogs? Why do people use their free time to practice eating as many hot dogs as they can in ten minutes? Who would work two jobs so that they can open a Bigfoot museum in the middle of the woods that is only open on weekends? Who is willing to let people die to have a single orchid plant? The world is crazy, horrifying, and amazing.
Susan Orleans is the best at venturing into these worlds and exploring them with warmth and an open mind. She can find art, beauty, love, pain, suffering, and humanity in unexpected places most people never give a second thought to. This one in particular goes into the world orchid collecting, and to this day, I can never look at orchids the same. Even the ones they have in the front corner of grocery stores stop me dead in my tracks and I have to go over to look at them. Books like this make me notice things I wouldn’t have otherwise. It makes the world seem magical again. It’s the closet I have ever been able to getting the tooth fairy, the Easter bunny, and Santa back.
I have always been drawn to peoples’ obsessions and hobbies, the things they choose to be a part of during their few moments of spare time. They often lead to an entire world I knew nothing about with rules and rulers that don’t apply anywhere else. People invest so much time, money, and effort into hobbies they love and it often comes out looking so strange to people who are not a part of it. I always find it fascinating that there are these epic, life-changing events happening right next to us. There are victories, defeats, scandals, and fame—half the time we never even notice that something wonderful or tragic is playing out. These obsessions showed me to never take things at face value. There are stories that seem ordinary and straight-forward but if you keep looking into it, you find facts that flip everything over. What makes a person spend thousands of dollars buying customized wet suits and surfboards so that they can surf with their dogs? Why do people use their free time to practice eating as many hot dogs as they can in ten minutes? Who would work two jobs so that they can open a Bigfoot museum in the middle of the woods that is only open on weekends? Who is willing to let people die to have a single orchid plant? The world is crazy, horrifying, and amazing.
Susan Orleans is the best at venturing into these worlds and exploring them with warmth and an open mind. She can find art, beauty, love, pain, suffering, and humanity in unexpected places most people never give a second thought to. This one in particular goes into the world orchid collecting, and to this day, I can never look at orchids the same. Even the ones they have in the front corner of grocery stores stop me dead in my tracks and I have to go over to look at them. Books like this make me notice things I wouldn’t have otherwise. It makes the world seem magical again. It’s the closet I have ever been able to getting the tooth fairy, the Easter bunny, and Santa back.
Where the Red Fern Grows:
This is the book I was reading when I moved from LA to Orange County, around the time I was ten. I had always liked reading before this, but this was the book that made me realize how powerful words can be. It effected me so physically in a way no book had before, or really has since. It made me ache and was the first book that made me cry. I think I cried on and off for about two weeks after finishing this book. It has played a huge role in what made me want to be a writer.
This also changed the way that I viewed dogs. They went from being pets to being part of the family as I read this. The only friend I had that first summer after the move was Seana and her brother, Sky. Even though they were entirely different breeds, I pictured Seana as Little Anne—the smaller, prettier, and smarter one. And Sky as the broader and very particular one. When I started reading this book, dogs slept outside. By the time I finished, I was sneaking Seana inside to sleep in my bed with me when I thought my parents were asleep. Dogs soon became my babies, and we know that loving dogs is roughly 40% of my personality. Even at work, they know how to tell which work jacket is mine because it’s coated in dog hair.
August 19: For the first day of school, our main activity was to create the classroom agreements we would focus on this year. They usually went for rules like “don’t bully” and “don’t exclude”. But this year, they focused on positive things they could do. They listed “have fun” and “love yourself”. I was really warmed by this until we had a group chat about why we chose these agreements. Allisson thought that loving yourself was really important because a lot of people are made to hate their bodies, the shape of it and the color of their skin. Milo agreed and added that suicide rates have been going up and they continue to spike every time a celebrity commits suicide.This is the book I was reading when I moved from LA to Orange County, around the time I was ten. I had always liked reading before this, but this was the book that made me realize how powerful words can be. It effected me so physically in a way no book had before, or really has since. It made me ache and was the first book that made me cry. I think I cried on and off for about two weeks after finishing this book. It has played a huge role in what made me want to be a writer.
This also changed the way that I viewed dogs. They went from being pets to being part of the family as I read this. The only friend I had that first summer after the move was Seana and her brother, Sky. Even though they were entirely different breeds, I pictured Seana as Little Anne—the smaller, prettier, and smarter one. And Sky as the broader and very particular one. When I started reading this book, dogs slept outside. By the time I finished, I was sneaking Seana inside to sleep in my bed with me when I thought my parents were asleep. Dogs soon became my babies, and we know that loving dogs is roughly 40% of my personality. Even at work, they know how to tell which work jacket is mine because it’s coated in dog hair.
August 20: Edwin fell asleep about two minutes into meditation. He slept for an hour, right through our chapter book reading, Camp Read-A-Lot, homework, and cleanup. He is much easier to deal with when he is unconscious.
August 21: The instructions said it would take 15 minutes to build the new equipment shed. Our last one broke halfway through the last school year when the part lock latch fell off. Kids spent their recesses shoving each other inside and then leaning against the door so no one could escape. The new one all pops into place with no hinges or nails. It’s so flimsy that the smart kids will be able to bypass the lock, find a seam, and pop it apart with their bare hands.
August 22: At the start of the week, I warned the entire class that I would not be buying replacements for any of the toys that they break. They already popped one of the squish toys. They kept feeding all the liquid through on tiny hole in the fishnet and the net dug into it until it started leaking green goo everywhere. It didn’t even last one full week with them.
August 23: Now that Vivi has Jai’von in her class, she has been the subject of his mom’s resentment. When closing time came and went, Vivi called her to see if she was on her way and how long it would take for her to get here. As soon as she arrived, she started yelling at Vivi for harassing her. Vivi managed to hold it together in from of Jai’von, but as soon as they were out the door, she was the angriest I have ever seen her in the three years we have worked together. She threw he things into her purse shouting that she was wasn’t going to be taking that kind of shit from her.
August 24: I always felt like I stuck out in Orange County. I was too Filipino to be seen as American by most of the people in town. When I went to Chapman, I went to a meeting of the Asian and Pacific Islander Club. I was excited to finally find a place where I felt like I belonged. But when I got there, the Asian side told me that I wasn’t one of them, I was Pacific Islander. The Pacific Islander side told me I didn’t fit in with them either, that I was actually considered Asian.
I didn’t go to a second meeting.
much love,
hedgie
Saturday, August 17, 2019
for 16 months
August 10: Everything about the Space Needle seemed to be designed to make me uncomfortable. The outer ledges and seats are made out of a thick, clear plastic meant for people to lean back on over 600 feet up in the air. There is also a revolving glass floor that immediately made me feel nauseated and unbalanced. Every foot of the clear sections of floor were covered in people laying on their backs and taking selfies. Every few minutes, people with a vacuum-like contraption clean off all smudges and fingerprints.
August 11: I think I reached peak Seattle Tourist. I worked on my novel in a Starbucks while it was raining.
August 12: Every year, we go through the same online trainings at work. They go over how to handle conflict in the workplace, how to keep an office safe, and how to avoid sexual harassment. This year, they added a new one: how to survive an active shooting.
August 13: There is going to be one less 5th grade teacher than usual this year. Now there will be 30 kids in each of these classes.
August 14: We all have our own individual desks in the bungalow this year. Melissa and Ana decided to do this in hopes it will prevent us from taking over too much space and going into what is meant for others. I don’t think that will stop Connie. They also did it to separate Fernando and Jen from talking too much. They are setting me between them.
August 15: I finished the first draft of Panning For Pyrite today. I keep going back and forth between being excited and terrified. I don’t know how I am supposed to feel after finishing such a huge step after working on it for 16 months.
August 16: I got sick just in time for the start of the school year. I caught what Nick spent a week claiming was just his “allergies”. Now my throat feels like it’s been worked on by a cheese grater and I can’t breathe out of my nose.
August 17: I already have enough people who don’t love me in my life. I don’t see why I have to invite more of them in and why I have to just accept it. Why do I have to be the adult and forgive the 60-year old man who still acts like a child and hasn’t even apologized to me?
Recently, he has been asking me to show him the first draft of my book. I already told him no in person and now he has written on my facebook wall and called himself my family too. After Nick talked to him about him making me feel uncared for and like he wishes I wasn’t there, his apparent way of fixing this isn’t him saying sorry, but for me to give him something extremely personal and vulnerable. And then they way he did it on Facebook, there’s no real way I can reject him without me looking like the asshole. Plus, I’ve seen the way he reacts to books written by family members. I want no part in it. I spent five minutes listening to the entire family talk about Lisa’s books. They said that they read random parts out loud to each other to make fun of it. They said they never finished reading the entire thing. They said they gave them away and would never have them on their bookshelves. I never heard a single nice comment from any of them.
much love,
hedgie
August 11: I think I reached peak Seattle Tourist. I worked on my novel in a Starbucks while it was raining.
August 12: Every year, we go through the same online trainings at work. They go over how to handle conflict in the workplace, how to keep an office safe, and how to avoid sexual harassment. This year, they added a new one: how to survive an active shooting.
August 13: There is going to be one less 5th grade teacher than usual this year. Now there will be 30 kids in each of these classes.
August 14: We all have our own individual desks in the bungalow this year. Melissa and Ana decided to do this in hopes it will prevent us from taking over too much space and going into what is meant for others. I don’t think that will stop Connie. They also did it to separate Fernando and Jen from talking too much. They are setting me between them.
August 15: I finished the first draft of Panning For Pyrite today. I keep going back and forth between being excited and terrified. I don’t know how I am supposed to feel after finishing such a huge step after working on it for 16 months.
August 16: I got sick just in time for the start of the school year. I caught what Nick spent a week claiming was just his “allergies”. Now my throat feels like it’s been worked on by a cheese grater and I can’t breathe out of my nose.
August 17: I already have enough people who don’t love me in my life. I don’t see why I have to invite more of them in and why I have to just accept it. Why do I have to be the adult and forgive the 60-year old man who still acts like a child and hasn’t even apologized to me?
Recently, he has been asking me to show him the first draft of my book. I already told him no in person and now he has written on my facebook wall and called himself my family too. After Nick talked to him about him making me feel uncared for and like he wishes I wasn’t there, his apparent way of fixing this isn’t him saying sorry, but for me to give him something extremely personal and vulnerable. And then they way he did it on Facebook, there’s no real way I can reject him without me looking like the asshole. Plus, I’ve seen the way he reacts to books written by family members. I want no part in it. I spent five minutes listening to the entire family talk about Lisa’s books. They said that they read random parts out loud to each other to make fun of it. They said they never finished reading the entire thing. They said they gave them away and would never have them on their bookshelves. I never heard a single nice comment from any of them.
much love,
hedgie
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