tanoshi katta

I guess I should start my first major post since returning, rantless, so this post shall be about how great a teacher I am.

Cos I am.

I taught my first class of the year earlier and it was a hoot.

I'd say things like, 'I bet you missed me. I bet the first thing you said each morning upon waking up was, 'I really miss my English teacher.'

I then made fun of the kids wearing masks. 

Said stuff like, 'I know you wear them so you can talk behind them but I can still hear you so doh', and then I showed them how their breath makes the mask 'move' when they talk, so it's pointless for them to wear them if they think it fools the teacher.

You had to be there.

Then I figured out why I kept gravitating to the left side of the room when a kid noticed that some doofus had put the cooler on, instead of the heater, and the kids on the right side of the room had turned blue and some of them lost fingers and toes.

You had to be there.

Then one of the kids asked what 'whale' meant cos it was in the text we were studying.

I cupped my hands over my mouth and started making haunting whale sounds and then asked them what animal I was.

'Wild boar'

'Elephant'

'Bear'

You had to be there.

It was damn funny.

I was totally being a mating whale.

Up to that point the kids had no idea that whales made noises like that.

It was a great class.

This class used to be a 'troubled' class but I fixed 'em and now I think they are fond of me, as I am fond of them.

Indeed, my heart jumped when I saw my students again, even though the demon in my head said, 'What the fuck is this past year about?!'

After stamping on the demon I returned to thinking warmly about the kids and realised that I would have loved to have been a breeder had I been wealthy enough to pay for heaps of free time whilst bringing up a child.

It seems like a lot of hard work, with very little time 'off', and I know I could never have done it, ever, I would have become a bitter mother, just like my mother didn't really dig m'hood, so it was best that I chose not to have kids, but saying that, had I been rich, yes, I would have had at least one kid because deep in my heart I do love children, which is probably why I was so happy being a teacher for all these years.

Anyway, whatever, what I want to say is that even though I am pretty 'down' right now, I experience pockets of joy, and from such moments I realise that I shouldn't be so hard on myself, that I sometimes bring joy to others, make them smile and laugh, and this is a wonderful gift, it is endearing to see my students look so comfortable in my classes, chuckling along with me, feeling relaxed.

I just taught my 2nd year junior high kids,.

Again a warm feeling of love for these sweet cherubs swept over me when I entered their classroom to replace a teacher who was temporarily covering for me - long story - and they all looked so happy to see me, huge smiles, it really made my day.

The classroom was fcking freezing though. 

ALL the windows were open. And the two classroom doors.

The kids were mid 'national test' mode. The room was quiet, of course, albeit they had beamed at me when I walked into the room. 

They were shivering, seriously shivering, the room was fcking freezing. It's 37 degrees today.

I quickly closed all the windows etc.

The kids looked thankful.

I asked the teacher who had covered for me why he'd tried to kill the students with cold.

He said he was 'changing the air'.

I agreed, it is a good idea to 'air' the classrooms, but NOT during a test that I am supervising.

I'm rambling.

I guess I wanted to write this to help remind me that I'm not always in fcked up mode.

That sometimes my former happy, witty, healthily crazy self, breaks through and shines forth.

But what a day.

Prepare for The Rant.