The lesson plans for the ENGLISH CLASS I'm substitute teaching today include the following gems:

- "Students will need they own paper."
- "... using a orange marker."
- "Please do not eraser the words on the board."

I'm not sure what to do with these except put some high-tech black rectangles over the eyes.

Except, you know, not share them. And that's just asking too much. Little. However you look at it.



( Dress Up. )

( Mouf' Bling. )



(I'ma prolly lock this post sooner than later, so get your kicks in now if you don't have a livejournal account with exclusive access to the Hot Dorkleporkin' Action.)

Well... the issue wasn't with any of my students on Friday. It was with the teacher -- yes, the teacher for whom I was substituting -- who, in most cases, is all but unreachable.

After a little confusion with some materials I was supposed to have but didn't, I get class underway in the morning. About ten minutes in, the classroom phone rings and I pick up -- it's this woman, calling from jury duty, to check on things. Okay.

( Names have been changed to protect the slow of wit. )

Fast forward to twenty minutes before the end of the school day... this woman saunters into the classroom and exclaims, "Hi, guuuuys!" She proceeds to kneel down with the kids working in groups, asks them how things are going, and starts teaching without so much as a nod in my direction. I say, "Excuse me? Nelly? Can you come talk to me for a second?" She gives me the old "one second" index finger and says she'll be-right-there-hang-on. Reining in my utter, gasping disbelief (and with as much haste as possible before something shiny distracts her), I try to explain what she should know about the day. I throw in a dripping, "So are you... are you taking over now? Am I leaving?"

"Oh yeah, you can go -- ha ha! Go ahead!"

What in the hell, crazy lady? Who are you and who in the name of Baby Jesus handed you children to influence?

I have been substituting for about a month now, and I've already seen what I'm tempted to call "both extremes of the spectrum"... in a month, though, I doubt I've truly seen the highest highs or the lowest lows this city's schools have to offer. That said, I can only imagine what I haven't seen.

One day, I'm teaching Human Development to offspring and siblings and other significant relations of Names. "Names" as in "You'd Know Their Names." "And Faces." "And Probably The Sordid Details of Their Last Battle With Anorexia Or Maybe the Episode Date When America Realized That Hair Was Gray For Good And No Going Back. Kindergarten tuition is twenty-some-odd thousand dollars.

The next day, I have a most tenuous grip -- slipping quickly and slapping back on, slipping quickly and slapping back on, like that sweaty-palmed kid negotiating the monkey bars -- on my notprejudice as I lead a Senior-level English class in a church nursery: itsy-bitsy chairs next to itsy-bitsy tables, really big chairs next to itsy-bitsy tables, a bench, a countertop, a bookcase for a seat. They've been there since October, they say, waiting to go back to their regular building "any day now" for four months. I butt heads with an eighteen-year-old Mexican girl who thinks she can be defiant and dishonest as long as she makes it look funny. She jokes; I tell her to move her chair after too many lies. She agrees that it sucks to be treated that way when you're a Senior in high school; I say it blows my mind to walk into a room full of them and have students act the way she has chosen to. She slumps in the corner.

Yesterday, I was teaching in a Junior High science lab with nicer cabinets than many kitchens I've seen.

Today, I met Chris and Jesse. They are in preschool. They have gold teeth.

Also today: we were walking back from the park and one of the students felt ill. We came upon an abandoned shopping cart in the road, and the staff's disturbingly easy concensus was to put the slumpy little boy in the cart and push him back to school. It was explained to the other children very matter-of-factly that "So-and-so doesn't feel good, so we're going to put him in here." Back on our stomping grounds, we re-abandoned that sucker in the street and went inside.

Lastly -- it was a full day, to be sure -- I met a child called "Montage." It wasn't spelled that way, I later found out, which I suppose is some consolation, but it was certainly pronounced that way. My brain still cannot shake the Team America number:

Show a lot of things happing at once,
Remind everyone of what’s going on. (What’s going on?)
And with every shot you show a little improvement --
To show it all would take too long.
That’s called a montage. (Montage!)
Oh, we want montage. (Montage!)

And anything that we want to go from just a beginner to a pro,
You need a montage. (Montage!)
Even Rocky had a montage. (Montage!)

Always fade out in a montage --
If you fade out, it seems like more time has passed
In a montage. (Montage!)

But seriously: gold teeth.

So. I have a tick head stuck in my side.

THIS IS NOT VEGAN.

It is, however, one of the most disturbing things I've ever had happen to my body. I think it's probably the mental and emotional equivalent of birthing an alien baby -- two should-be-separate creatures that are, mmm, how you say? Attached. Physically. Ughhhh, it gives me the heebie jeebies.

In larger news, yes, I got the tick while doing something cool. I chaperoned another of those environmental education trips and had a fun (if tiring) time this past weekend. I will post pictures soonish, I'm sure.

In opposite news, within the hour that I was feeling completely dirty and leprous post-tick discovery, the little penguin directed me to the website of the company I did that modeling for a while back. I think I have never looked quite so sleek and sexy (well, except for one shot that shows off my gigantically wide shoulders and sturdy German arms)... and I say that only because it's a completely honest and very foreign feeling. Makeup is amazing and a little greasy.

More recently, I'm feeling excessively lazy on the send-your-shit-out-and-get-some-acting-work front. And speaking of lazy, I'm feeling like I've gained ten pounds since moving to La-La Land, which should just be impossible. It's not, though, because constantly entertaining myself -- by myself -- makes for some boring chunks of time now and then. Some weeks I read more; some weeks I run more; some weeks I dream up things to buy at Whole Foods and consume more. These two little semi-circles of yuck make for a really shitty full circle of unmotivatedness that cycles on and on. I need to break out. "Ahhhhhh, Break Out!"... was that an 80's song? Or was it "Freak Out!"? Or something else completely? I don't know... and I don't expect anyone to have arrived coherently at the end of this paragraph with me.

My head is quietly toying with the idea of a little companion... perhaps I'll go into more detail later, as it's really just a thought-tinker at the moment.

Ew ew ew, I have a head stuck in my flesh. FUCKING BLORF.

I recently watched some movies... JESUS CAMP, which would seriously have freaked me out if I hadn't come of age in Jesus RV Park... HARD CANDY, recommended by Lindy Loo and quite the little nugget, I must say... ROCKY HORROR PICTURE SHOW, or at least half of it, which I'd never seen and am having trouble hooking into... and THE FIFTH ELEMENT, which jen_tel gave me a while back and I finally got around to popping in. Fun stuff.

My focus is off being repaired somewhere, I think. I'm in the midst of a just-get-by time, and I don't like it much. Meh. Color me melancholy.