2002-06-07
Do we gotta do any work?, posted at 11:34 a.m.
Epiphany in Baltimore has moved to epiphanyinbaltimore.blogspot.com It's Friday, so my mood is much better than it has been lately. The students are very irritating this week, so I'm glad it's coming to a close. It's also the last Friday of the year and it's payday, so the news keeps getting better and better.All week, my students have been greeting me with questions like, "We don't gotta do any work today, right?" and accusations such as, "You're the only teacher doing work!". I know they're lying, because I've other teachers have told me that the same thing is happening in other classes. When I give them classwork, they're especially whiny and talkative throughout. Lately, I feel like each class period is a miniature battle.
Luckily, it'll all come to a close soon. We're on a semester schedule, meaning I teach each set of students for only five months or so. I wonder if that's my breaking point with some students. There has been discussion at our school to change to a yearlong, A-B schedule, and I'm in favor of this move. I think literature and writing would be much better taught in this structure. However, I see this end-of-the-semester attitude as a negative aspect of that schedule. If I struggle with the kids at the end of a five-month block, then imagine how much I would struggle after ten months. But, then again, maybe it's just because it's June and hot and I haven't been as tough on the kids lately as I should have been. Perhaps I've let up a bit.
One of my favorite things to do at the end of a semester is to write letters to all my students. They are wholly positive, along with some "growth" ideas for them. I think they're effective and close the year out on a good note. However, I was too stressed out to do them last semester, and I'm beginning to see that possibility for this semester as well. Hopefully I'll get that done. I enjoy doing it, and the one time I did it before (at Eastern last year), it worked well.
My cat had his first veterinarian appointment yesterday. He's healthy. However, the fact that his file has "Noname" on it is definitely a motivator to get him one as quickly as possible. I am being very indecisive about it; I realize this. My goal is to have it figured out by the end of the weekend. I really liked my guestbook suggestion of "Zooey" today. I am still really enjoying "Tea Cake" and "Atticus". We shall see.
In other news, this is Jeremy's last weekend in Baltimore. Our relationship had deteriorated in the last few months, but I think it's currently on an upswing. At least, we're being friendly. Tonight, I'm hoping to convince him to come out for our should-be-patented "zoo pub crawl," which we made up as our first trip "out" in Baltimore last October. It consists of going to Fell's Point, and having a/some drink(s) at every bar named after an animal: Crabby Dick's, The Green Turtle, Cat's Eye Pub, The Horse They Came in On, The Armadillo Lounge, and Kooper's Tavern (Kooper is a dog). I hope to convince others to join us. It may well be a cab ride night. I'm going to an Orioles game on Saturday night and a concert on Sunday night, so this is probably our last chance to really hang out. One thing that Jeremy and I do well together is we are consummate drinking buddies. Ever since the first time I ever drank alcohol (Nov. 3, 1996; I was 19 and we were in our first-floor Holmes Hall dorm room in a night with Jake and Michelle that we dubbed "Operation Chicken Butt" in its planning and execution stages), we've always had a good time getting drunk together. Hopefully, this will end things here in Baltimore on a good note.