October 24: One third of my students have not had their registration fee paid for yet. I handed out reminders to the parents as they picked up their kids. One mom got upset with me and said that she had never paid for this program in the six years her son had been going here and she’s not going to do it now. Then she stole my pen.
October 25: Two boys stopped Melissa in the hallway and asked if she had seen Mr. Woods, the school principal.
“I haven’t,” Melissa answered. “What do you need?”
“We did something bad and we’re turning ourselves in.”
October 26: There were twice as many kids for today’s slime party as there were for the last one, but we were only warned half an hour ahead of time. Half the classes did not come down on time and we were still being sent kids after the school day had already finished and we had run out of glue.
October 27: They had a tradition for Valentine’s Day where they went to the same chocolate shop and built each other a collection of chocolates in a heart-shaped box. His was filled with mostly dark chocolate and fudges. Hers was milk chocolate mixed with caramels and nuts.
October 28: The apple orchard handed out these rods with a claw-like wire cage at one end that could yank and catch the apples in the limbs above our heads. But they were large and clumsy. Grabbing for one apple would usually send two more tumbling down after it.
October 29: Over the weekend, he added a second lock to the front door. This one locked only from the outside. He didn’t know what else to do. He couldn’t afford someone to spend all day with him, but he also couldn’t risk him getting out again. He wondered if Irving even noticed he was locked in from the rest of the world.
October 30: “Ms. Heather, what are you going to be for Halloween?”
“Rosie the Riveter.”
She game me a doubtful look.
“What?” I asked.
“But you need muscles to be her.”
October 31: The Halloween party sent out numerous reminders that this was not a sex party. They did have a spanking room, but it was repetitive. The most exciting part of the night was when a woman in a French maid outfit entered with dozens of forks and a chocolate cake.
Greg had been edging towards the door until that moment. “I was ready to leave, but then they brought in the cake and I have to know where this goes.”
much love,
hedgie
Wednesday, October 31, 2018
Tuesday, October 23, 2018
go for arson
October 16: Acie was in a rebellious mood and was doing every little act of defiance that he could think of. Unfortunately, one of them was breaking my “don’t run down the stairs” policy. He ended up tripping on the fourth step and rammed head-first into a wall. He sat on the floor crying and David helped prop him up.
I sat next to him and asked him what the president’s name was.
He closed his eyes and groaned. “Don’t make me say it.”
October 17: Susan Orlean paused in the middle of promoting her new book, The Library Book, to give the audience advice on how to get away with committing a felony. “If you want to commit a crime, here’s a tip, go for arson.”
October 18: When teachers request support in their classrooms, they refer to the children that need assistance by their initials. It has made me biased against certain letters of the alphabet. These names tend to contain E’s, D’s, and J’s more than any other letter. This morning, we had two calls just three seconds apart.
“Female J.J. is throwing rulers in Rm 203.”
“Male J.J. just eloped from the classroom.”
October 19: Two men from the Safe Streets program came to teach my class about the street systems that have been designed to keep them safe. They asked my class for examples that they already knew about. They were expecting answers like slower speed limits around the school or crosswalks. Instead, my kids told them about the fences to keep shooters out and the locking front gate so that people can’t come in to try to kidnap them.
The two men stared at them in silence for a few seconds before saying, “Oh. You guys got dark fast.”
October 20: Heidi spent the week in Yosemite National Park with no cell phone service. Despite this, she somehow managed to prepare a present for us in the park. It was a Travel Stamp notebook where you add special stamps for every national park you visit. She somehow already printed a stuck in one of our wedding photos for the Joshua Tree National Park square.
October 21: She was on all fours on the ground, screaming with all the force of a power washer.
October 22: Serenity decides to quit soccer forever roughly every ten minutes. She stomps off the course and does her best to force around what she can find. She kicks at the trunk of trees, throws leaves into the court, and sulks on the bench while shoving everyone’s water bottles and sweaters to the ground.
October 23: The front office flooded with students suddenly requesting to replace school ID cards that they had lost months before. Their parents were terrified and demanded that they have something with name nam and photo on them at all times.
much love,
hedgie
I sat next to him and asked him what the president’s name was.
He closed his eyes and groaned. “Don’t make me say it.”
October 17: Susan Orlean paused in the middle of promoting her new book, The Library Book, to give the audience advice on how to get away with committing a felony. “If you want to commit a crime, here’s a tip, go for arson.”
October 18: When teachers request support in their classrooms, they refer to the children that need assistance by their initials. It has made me biased against certain letters of the alphabet. These names tend to contain E’s, D’s, and J’s more than any other letter. This morning, we had two calls just three seconds apart.
“Female J.J. is throwing rulers in Rm 203.”
“Male J.J. just eloped from the classroom.”
October 19: Two men from the Safe Streets program came to teach my class about the street systems that have been designed to keep them safe. They asked my class for examples that they already knew about. They were expecting answers like slower speed limits around the school or crosswalks. Instead, my kids told them about the fences to keep shooters out and the locking front gate so that people can’t come in to try to kidnap them.
The two men stared at them in silence for a few seconds before saying, “Oh. You guys got dark fast.”
October 20: Heidi spent the week in Yosemite National Park with no cell phone service. Despite this, she somehow managed to prepare a present for us in the park. It was a Travel Stamp notebook where you add special stamps for every national park you visit. She somehow already printed a stuck in one of our wedding photos for the Joshua Tree National Park square.
October 21: She was on all fours on the ground, screaming with all the force of a power washer.
October 22: Serenity decides to quit soccer forever roughly every ten minutes. She stomps off the course and does her best to force around what she can find. She kicks at the trunk of trees, throws leaves into the court, and sulks on the bench while shoving everyone’s water bottles and sweaters to the ground.
October 23: The front office flooded with students suddenly requesting to replace school ID cards that they had lost months before. Their parents were terrified and demanded that they have something with name nam and photo on them at all times.
much love,
hedgie
Monday, October 15, 2018
joke's on you, i don't have a man
October 8: Melissa is trying to get me out of the Beacon Bridge meetings. They plan to hold them for two hours every week during program, which means I would have to take a day off from work just to sit around with people doing a vision board to lead us to the decision that our team building events should feel welcoming.
October 9: Addie had a teeth cleaning today, which means the vet put her under some anesthetic. She is still feeling the effects. She keeps standing up only to walk a few steps forward and staring at the wall for five minutes straight, looking very confused and worried.
October 10: At the end of the day, it suddenly got colder than anyone was prepared for. Maria was contemplating turning on the laminator just to warm up her ha
October 11: Last night, Ana and Melissa had to stay with one of my students until 7:15. Apparently no one in her family noticed she was missing. Her mother wasn’t answering her phone when they called her repeatedly. Eventually, they got ahold of her grandmother. Over an hour and a half late, the first thing the mother did was chide her daughter for bothering the grandmother.
October 12: The entire school gathered into the cafeteria for the Fiesta Latina showcase. Three classes performed songs from “Coco”. During one to them, a single boy spent the whole time doing the worm. In one of the fifth grade songs, the married dance teachers awkwardly inserted themselves by having the class suddenly split in half on the stage and they did a dance solo.
October 13: A ring of running water circles the two sushi chefs. The water contained little wooden boats that were tethered together by three plastic rings connected from one boat’s rudder to the next one’s bow. The chefs were able to fit two or three plates of sushi on each boat as they floated by the customers.
October 14: The lists for traditional anniversary gifts confuse me a bit. There’s the part where they suddenly stop listing every year and only go for the big numbers that end in five or zero, but there’s also the gifts I can’t possibly imagine how they came to be part of the tradition. Why is the sixth either candy or iron? Who decided fourteen years would be animal items? Coral?
October 15: Jai’von was convinced he knew how to get control over Miss Maria. “Are you sure you want to know?” He asked.
“Try me,” said Maria, barely looking up from her phone.
“If you don’t give me a snack, I’m going to tell your man.”
Maria pointed a finger at him and laughed. “Joke’s on you, I don’t have a man. I’m so alone!”
much love,
hedgie
October 9: Addie had a teeth cleaning today, which means the vet put her under some anesthetic. She is still feeling the effects. She keeps standing up only to walk a few steps forward and staring at the wall for five minutes straight, looking very confused and worried.
October 10: At the end of the day, it suddenly got colder than anyone was prepared for. Maria was contemplating turning on the laminator just to warm up her ha
October 11: Last night, Ana and Melissa had to stay with one of my students until 7:15. Apparently no one in her family noticed she was missing. Her mother wasn’t answering her phone when they called her repeatedly. Eventually, they got ahold of her grandmother. Over an hour and a half late, the first thing the mother did was chide her daughter for bothering the grandmother.
October 12: The entire school gathered into the cafeteria for the Fiesta Latina showcase. Three classes performed songs from “Coco”. During one to them, a single boy spent the whole time doing the worm. In one of the fifth grade songs, the married dance teachers awkwardly inserted themselves by having the class suddenly split in half on the stage and they did a dance solo.
October 13: A ring of running water circles the two sushi chefs. The water contained little wooden boats that were tethered together by three plastic rings connected from one boat’s rudder to the next one’s bow. The chefs were able to fit two or three plates of sushi on each boat as they floated by the customers.
October 14: The lists for traditional anniversary gifts confuse me a bit. There’s the part where they suddenly stop listing every year and only go for the big numbers that end in five or zero, but there’s also the gifts I can’t possibly imagine how they came to be part of the tradition. Why is the sixth either candy or iron? Who decided fourteen years would be animal items? Coral?
October 15: Jai’von was convinced he knew how to get control over Miss Maria. “Are you sure you want to know?” He asked.
“Try me,” said Maria, barely looking up from her phone.
“If you don’t give me a snack, I’m going to tell your man.”
Maria pointed a finger at him and laughed. “Joke’s on you, I don’t have a man. I’m so alone!”
much love,
hedgie
Sunday, October 7, 2018
should i stop them?
October 1: Abel found his ideal reading spot at recess. It was in the middle of the soccer court while a game was happening. He looked so happy and relaxed sitting there amid the screaming chaos with his little pile of books.
October 2: I gave my kids a riddle to solve during journal time today. It went: What can you see once in a minutes, twice in a moment, and never in a thousand years? Eight of them guessed that it was a cookie.
October 3: When I locked the classroom door at pickup time, I used to tell my kids “let’s roll”. I can no longer do this because they have decided to take me literally and actually get on the floor to roll down the hallway.
October 4: The new Reading Partners lady looked concerned as soon as she walked through the door. “There are kids banging their heads against the side of the building. Should I stop them?”
October 5: When she gripped the chair in front of her, she could feel it rumble with the vibrations of the Garbage concert. The bass line thudded heavy through her body, manipulating the beat of her heart. The smell alternated between clouds of maple syrup vape and farts.
October 6: The man running the karaoke machine behind the counter at Dino’s fumbles with dozens of knobs on his table to make the drunken crooners sound as good as possible. He sang backup to my song, harmonizing with me perfectly even though we had never met before. The guy who came up after spit out lyrics to a rap song faster than my eyes could read them on the teleprompter.
October 7: In The Luxor, the elevator runs sideways due to the building’s pyramid shape and makes riders feel tipsy before they even have a chance to drink. There is a fake city stacked in the middle of the casino floor, which looks impressive when looking up, but they failed to decorate the tops of the stained roofs you look down on when you go to the hotel rooms.
much love,
hedgie
October 2: I gave my kids a riddle to solve during journal time today. It went: What can you see once in a minutes, twice in a moment, and never in a thousand years? Eight of them guessed that it was a cookie.
October 3: When I locked the classroom door at pickup time, I used to tell my kids “let’s roll”. I can no longer do this because they have decided to take me literally and actually get on the floor to roll down the hallway.
October 4: The new Reading Partners lady looked concerned as soon as she walked through the door. “There are kids banging their heads against the side of the building. Should I stop them?”
October 5: When she gripped the chair in front of her, she could feel it rumble with the vibrations of the Garbage concert. The bass line thudded heavy through her body, manipulating the beat of her heart. The smell alternated between clouds of maple syrup vape and farts.
October 6: The man running the karaoke machine behind the counter at Dino’s fumbles with dozens of knobs on his table to make the drunken crooners sound as good as possible. He sang backup to my song, harmonizing with me perfectly even though we had never met before. The guy who came up after spit out lyrics to a rap song faster than my eyes could read them on the teleprompter.
October 7: In The Luxor, the elevator runs sideways due to the building’s pyramid shape and makes riders feel tipsy before they even have a chance to drink. There is a fake city stacked in the middle of the casino floor, which looks impressive when looking up, but they failed to decorate the tops of the stained roofs you look down on when you go to the hotel rooms.
much love,
hedgie
Sunday, September 30, 2018
i have some milk for you
September 24: The late pick up kids were playing pretend grocery. Celeste bought an assortment of plastic foods, which Valerye rung up at the fake cash register. Valerye handed Celeste her change in pretend coins. Celeste stared at a phony penny intensely. “Hello, Mr. Lincoln,” she said to the coin. “I haven’t seen you since you were assassinated.”
September 25: Everyone’s cellphones beeped to alert us to Bill Cosby’s sentence as a convicted sex offender. I saw a book on our shelf that was written by Bill Cosby and titled “My Big Lie”, a book about how lying is always bad. Jen took it fro me to snapchat the irony.
September 26: Today, a student in the kinder class whose name I don’t know approached me in the playground. “Ms. Heather, I have some milk for you,” he said. Then he proceeded to pull two cartons of milk out of his pants pocket. How he managed to fit those in there is a mystery.
September 27: Ana has been receiving and typing up the forms turned in for our after school program. Today, she found one where the parents got confused at the race question. They checked “other” and wrote in “purple”.
September 28: Every single child complained at the slime party.
“It’s too hard. Look,” they said. Then they threw their ball of slime onto the cafeteria table and watched it bounce.
“If you don’t like it, I’ll take it,” I said.
Every time, they pulled their slime back protectively. “No,” they said. “I’ll keep it.”
September 29: Our new neighbor keeps a chair in her bay window. It’s where she likes to read. Today, she let us know that Addie spends all day sitting in our window vigilantly watching her read and barking every time she moves.
September 30: Cheddar can be a verb. It is a part of the cheese making process where you cut up cheese curds while they are still warm and fermenting. You salt the sections and stack them like Jenga pieces over and over again until everything is mixed up.
much love,
hedgie
September 25: Everyone’s cellphones beeped to alert us to Bill Cosby’s sentence as a convicted sex offender. I saw a book on our shelf that was written by Bill Cosby and titled “My Big Lie”, a book about how lying is always bad. Jen took it fro me to snapchat the irony.
September 26: Today, a student in the kinder class whose name I don’t know approached me in the playground. “Ms. Heather, I have some milk for you,” he said. Then he proceeded to pull two cartons of milk out of his pants pocket. How he managed to fit those in there is a mystery.
September 27: Ana has been receiving and typing up the forms turned in for our after school program. Today, she found one where the parents got confused at the race question. They checked “other” and wrote in “purple”.
September 28: Every single child complained at the slime party.
“It’s too hard. Look,” they said. Then they threw their ball of slime onto the cafeteria table and watched it bounce.
“If you don’t like it, I’ll take it,” I said.
Every time, they pulled their slime back protectively. “No,” they said. “I’ll keep it.”
September 29: Our new neighbor keeps a chair in her bay window. It’s where she likes to read. Today, she let us know that Addie spends all day sitting in our window vigilantly watching her read and barking every time she moves.
September 30: Cheddar can be a verb. It is a part of the cheese making process where you cut up cheese curds while they are still warm and fermenting. You salt the sections and stack them like Jenga pieces over and over again until everything is mixed up.
much love,
hedgie
Sunday, September 23, 2018
i can read the monkey's mind
September 17: Mr. Wood’s came had a black eye from trying to calm down a child who was throwing around everything in the class he could pick up. That child has a two-day suspension, which is the first suspension I have ever heard of taking place at this school. Not even the kid who repeatedly pulled the fire alarm got suspended. He wrote one anonymous apology letter.
September 18: “This is our blubber glove so we can experience what it feels like for whales to be in cold water.”
“What’s in it?”
“Crisco. It’s used for baking as a butter substitute.”
“Can I eat it?”
“Please don’t.”
“But I love butter.”
“You would eat just butter?”
“I can eat a whole stick. I like to put it on chocolate.”
September 19: By the time my kids came down for supper, there weren’t enough hot dogs for them to have seconds. They took it very, very personally.
September 20: I taught my Endangered Species class about the Black Crested Macaques that figured out how to take selfies. After they got over the whole bright pink butt thing, they got surprisingly into the court case that followed. “How can PETA know what the monkey is thinking? Are they just like ‘I can read the monkey’s mind and they want to sue you and you and you?’”
September 21: Addie is not able to sense earthquakes before they happen, but apparently she can predict when George is about to have a bout of diarrhea. At three in the morning, she started pacing the room and whining until Nick took them out. Which is double strange because George shows no symptoms of anything bad about to happen until it is already too late.
September 22: Nick decided that today we would have a tea parade. He brewed a mug for all five teas that he brought home from Singapore. He even chose themed mugs so that we could tell which was which. The Unicorn green tea was in a green mug. The detox tea was in my teacher mug because being a teacher means I need to detox. The Singapore Breakfast was in a red mug because it matched the red tin. The white tea was in a white box. And the Royal Tea was in an Elvis mug because that is the closest thing we had to royalty.
September 23: I have 22 fourth graders stuffed into a room that is set up for 15 second graders. They can’t all sit in their chairs without moving the table farther away from each other and they can’t all fit on the rainbow rug at the same time because the cabinets are positioned right at the edges and there is no space for overflow.
much love,
hedgie
September 18: “This is our blubber glove so we can experience what it feels like for whales to be in cold water.”
“What’s in it?”
“Crisco. It’s used for baking as a butter substitute.”
“Can I eat it?”
“Please don’t.”
“But I love butter.”
“You would eat just butter?”
“I can eat a whole stick. I like to put it on chocolate.”
September 19: By the time my kids came down for supper, there weren’t enough hot dogs for them to have seconds. They took it very, very personally.
September 20: I taught my Endangered Species class about the Black Crested Macaques that figured out how to take selfies. After they got over the whole bright pink butt thing, they got surprisingly into the court case that followed. “How can PETA know what the monkey is thinking? Are they just like ‘I can read the monkey’s mind and they want to sue you and you and you?’”
September 21: Addie is not able to sense earthquakes before they happen, but apparently she can predict when George is about to have a bout of diarrhea. At three in the morning, she started pacing the room and whining until Nick took them out. Which is double strange because George shows no symptoms of anything bad about to happen until it is already too late.
September 22: Nick decided that today we would have a tea parade. He brewed a mug for all five teas that he brought home from Singapore. He even chose themed mugs so that we could tell which was which. The Unicorn green tea was in a green mug. The detox tea was in my teacher mug because being a teacher means I need to detox. The Singapore Breakfast was in a red mug because it matched the red tin. The white tea was in a white box. And the Royal Tea was in an Elvis mug because that is the closest thing we had to royalty.
September 23: I have 22 fourth graders stuffed into a room that is set up for 15 second graders. They can’t all sit in their chairs without moving the table farther away from each other and they can’t all fit on the rainbow rug at the same time because the cabinets are positioned right at the edges and there is no space for overflow.
much love,
hedgie
Sunday, September 16, 2018
snorting cocaine off a clown’s dick
September 9: We walked to Dolores Park and Katie pointed out a grown man wearing a rainbow unicorn onesie. Katie couldn’t stop staring at him because she wasn’t used to people dressing this way. All I could think of was how hot it must be wearing that on a sunny day like this.
September 10: I planned my lessons for the week, including community building games like ‘Never Have I Ever’ and ‘Vroom, Vroom, Screech’. Then I realized that I was teaching children the games I learned from drinking heavily in college while playing King’s Cup.
September 11: After each round, the kid who was eliminated from animal musical chairs would name their favorite animal. The kids still in the game would walk around the circle of chairs in the manner of the named animal. They had a difficult time trying to figure out how to walk like a chameleon and just squinted suspiciously at each other.
September 12: Jen said she was coming in late today because she needed to drop her kids off at the airport. She sent out a group text, saying she was at Boba Guys and asking if anyone wanted anything. Melissa looked up from her desk. “Tell her I want her to come in to work.”
September 13: Christy once took a candle-making class. She was able to choose the scent she wanted to work with. Among the normal choices of scents like lavender and vanilla was ‘freshly washed man’.
September 14: Everyone’s little brothers became very different adults than I expected them to be. Lydia’s brother David now burns holes into people’s chests and apply frog flesh to the holes, which causes them to vomit while he plays the flute. Emily’s brother Jake had a lot of beers and we ended having a conversation about snorting cocaine off a clown’s dick.
September 15: Though Lydia’s wedding day was full of touching moments and tender scenes, the memory that will always stick out in my mind was her excited naked dance while screaming “I’m getting married”at the top of the stairs before she took her morning shower.
September 16: Lydia’s wedding photographer cancelled on them three hours before the wedding by email. Nick ended taking pictures of everything and took his duty so seriously that everyone thought he was the actual hired photographer and were confused as to why he was helping clean up the venue the next morning.
much love,
hedgie
September 10: I planned my lessons for the week, including community building games like ‘Never Have I Ever’ and ‘Vroom, Vroom, Screech’. Then I realized that I was teaching children the games I learned from drinking heavily in college while playing King’s Cup.
September 11: After each round, the kid who was eliminated from animal musical chairs would name their favorite animal. The kids still in the game would walk around the circle of chairs in the manner of the named animal. They had a difficult time trying to figure out how to walk like a chameleon and just squinted suspiciously at each other.
September 12: Jen said she was coming in late today because she needed to drop her kids off at the airport. She sent out a group text, saying she was at Boba Guys and asking if anyone wanted anything. Melissa looked up from her desk. “Tell her I want her to come in to work.”
September 13: Christy once took a candle-making class. She was able to choose the scent she wanted to work with. Among the normal choices of scents like lavender and vanilla was ‘freshly washed man’.
September 14: Everyone’s little brothers became very different adults than I expected them to be. Lydia’s brother David now burns holes into people’s chests and apply frog flesh to the holes, which causes them to vomit while he plays the flute. Emily’s brother Jake had a lot of beers and we ended having a conversation about snorting cocaine off a clown’s dick.
September 15: Though Lydia’s wedding day was full of touching moments and tender scenes, the memory that will always stick out in my mind was her excited naked dance while screaming “I’m getting married”at the top of the stairs before she took her morning shower.
September 16: Lydia’s wedding photographer cancelled on them three hours before the wedding by email. Nick ended taking pictures of everything and took his duty so seriously that everyone thought he was the actual hired photographer and were confused as to why he was helping clean up the venue the next morning.
much love,
hedgie
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