I am so thankful for my job. I love all the challenges that come up each day, I love all the creative ways I am divinely inspired to meet them, I have even grown to love phrases like “sensible heels,” and “teacher training days,” (which really just means the kids are going to be NUTS because each class is cut by twenty minutes and therefore I will play Bingo with all my classes.)

I think its all very adorable and I love that after so much time together, I’m starting to feel like I really know the kids and their families.

Its been a long time since I wrote about the teachingness…I never thought this year would be so much work. Not knowing my subject (Latin?! REALLY!?…..Good thing I love it!), and never having learned how to teach (totally uncredentialled!), multiplied by junior highers (mmm who DOESNT want to spend their time with 10-14 year olds every day forever?!) that are literally the toughest crowd ever, means I am at my classroom from 7:30am to about 6pm on a normal night, and I come home, eat, grade, write lesson plans, email myself notes, and keep working on things until about 10:30, when I coax my bones into a bubble bath and the biggest effort I can make is to raise a wine glass to my mouth and change the song on my ipod. I literally have to talk myself into brushing my teeth everynight, because it just always seems sooo haaard.

They are so wacky to try and teach. They are walking pituitary glands. Hormone firecrackers. You can’t hold their attention for more than thirty seconds. I am probably running a large hole through the carpet under my white boards because I spend all my time dancing back and forth in front of the room to keep them entertained. And they pass notes, chew gum, try to hold hands under the table, doodle like crazy, try to sneak food, etc. While I try to engage them in a subject they will never take again in their lives. Literally. So I have to put on a bit of a circus everyday.

But they are cute, and they are funny, and they have sweet, sweet hearts. They come running up to me on Mondays and say things like “Miss Weight! I watched “The Little Mermaid” over the weekend, and I finally saw that part you always sing during Study Hall!” or “Miss Weight! You know how you teach Spanish class? Well I just found out my neighbor is half-Mexican!” Or they want a high-five or a hug because it’s their three-quarters of a year before they turn 13 birthday…..oh sometimes they make me melt.

So we start Spirit Week this week, which puts me in charge of 20 6-8th graders with the color orange as our team color, and we have dress up days each day of the week, and a community service project on Wednesday. I am so excited. We have to come up with a team cheer! We play games! It will be amazing!

I keep sending out email blasts with the history of the color orange, famous things that were orange throughout history, famous oranges in movies and music, etc., and trying to inspire the kids. I am a very competitve person, and I love school spirit, and I love the kids on my team, so the person that is “Miss Weight” right now is like eating poprocks and soda at a rave at Disneyland on New Years Eve for this week…..I’m so excited! I get to be so childlike. Fantastic.

Tomorrow is “Dots and Stripes” day, and I’m going to look sooo hideous. Dotted orange shoes and striped tights and a dotted dress with a striped tee and a striped sweater and facepaint….But its going to be okay, because I’m old enough to not care about what people think about me, as long as I’m having a good time. What’s so cool about this week, is encouraging these kids, at the horribly awkward age that they are at, to think the same. To realize that the kids who go for it the most, are the kids we remember all our lives, the kids who, at the end, will be the coolest.

My job is hard, hard hard HARD dealing with these kids all day. But to be able to hold their little embers of a dream in my hands and encourage them to grow is such a gift. Even if I’m known as “Crazy Miss Weight” in the process. I’m truly blessed.
oh
and orange…orange…Orange…ORAnge…ORANGE….ORANGE!!!!! gooooooooooooORANGE!!!!!!!!