Monday, Sept. 20, 2004
Girl, Erupted., posted at 4:41 p.m.
Epiphany in Baltimore has moved to epiphanyinbaltimore.blogspot.com Today at our department meeting, a guy who got married last November announced that his wife is pregnant. My department head's wife is having a baby in a couple of weeks (due 10/12). Another colleague is getting married on Oct. 30.Out of 14 teachers in the department, 11 are married. 1 is getting married this month. That will leave two. Thank god for Lena. Without her, I would be the only single one left.
Life events keep happening to others but not to me. I don't know what it is...
I'm well aware that people stay single into their late twenties and that they're out there. I recently put a match.com profile up and have been getting e-mails like crazy. But then I look over the course of my week - tonight I'm free, but Tuesday is Parent/Teacher night, Wednesday I work at the second job, on Thursday I have to go to the whiffleball Happy Hour kickoff at Castaway's since I'm the coach, on Friday I'm heading to the Tigers game here in Baltimore, I work on Saturday and Sunday night.
I realize my life isn't a bad one. I guess I need to leave more time for dating. I've been trying to get together with a girl off of match.com for a long time now. Last week, we were thinking about going out on Thursday but then we both got too busy. This week, I don't have one night free. Next week, perhaps.
Sigh...
I've pretty much decided that I'm not going to remain in Baltimore after this year if I have one more year of being single. I had my year and a half of fun, then I had a year of hell last year, and now I feel like I'm over that. Maybe I've just become too comfortable being alone, and that's not a pleasant thought, and it's something that I think I would need to break up by a move somewhere else.
Meanwhile, I have a real estate agent now. I'm so tentative right now, though, about everything involved with that. I don't know what in the hell I want.
***
It was actually a very good day today, except for the bitchy girl who I sent out. She's a junior. She had her head down.
"Latoya, Please put your head up."
She does.
A minute later: "Why is it only me? Why ain't you telling him (points to boy next to her) to put his head up?"
"He has his head up and a pen in his hand. And you need to worry about yourself."
Later, she looks at another kid who is doing his work and tapping his pencil. I don't notice it until she mentions it. She's across the room.
"So, I guess it's okay if you're tapping your pencil, huh?"
"You need to worry about getting your own work done."
She continues arguing. I ask her to sit in the hallway and we'll discuss it when she cools down. She continues bitching as she gathers her things. I see she has Skittles on her desk. I walk over, grab them, and throw them out. I regret this now, because it set her off a little, but it made me so happy to do. I made a big production on day one that I would do this, but I never have done it before and, wow, it was effective.
"You need to pay me back for them."
"You need to follow classroom rules and school policy."
While in the hallway, she is standing out there and says to me - while I'm teaching - how long she has to stay out there because her legs hurt. "Until I'm ready to talk with you," I say.
"Hurry up because my legs are sore."
"Take a chair and stop disrupting the class."
At this point, I'm floored and pissed off. Students just do not treat me badly because I don't treat them badly.
I go out and talk with her. She's steaming. After she raises her voice, I refuse to talk with her and tell her to stay out there the last ten minutes of class and we'll talk about it when she cools down. I could even feel myself getting angry, which rarely happens. I walk away. She says she's not staying in the hallway. I send her to the office instead. She says she's not going. I tell her that she's old enough to make her own decisions, but that she's making all the wrong ones today. I ask her to go to the office again, call down there, and that's that. I write her up and call home. Mom is coming in for a meeting with the Principal on Wednesday. We'll see. I write up about one kid a year so it didn't make me pleased, but it certainly could have been worse.