The class of 2007

Done graduated.

So Friday went a little something like this...

Up at 6, out the door at 6:35. Wear long flowered skirt, coordinating sweater, cute slide sandals.

Catch two buses and the BART train to school.

Realize too late that the bus is not stopping at the school, the bus is going to do a loooong loop around a couple of adjoining blocks and drop me off three blocks away from school.

Dash through the doors just as the whole school has started to wonder where I am.

Tend worked up overexcited kids until 12:30 when we dismiss for graduation day. Go have lunch, buy nylons, realize that nylons cannot be worn with outfit I have on, as cute slide sandals slide right off them, endangering my life and limb.

Take two buses--two long, loooong buses--to a job interview in Berkeley. Interview with a whole panel of people, who have a checklist of questions. Feel as thought not doing a very good job of answering the questions. Feel very blue. Catch two more loooong buses. See a really frightening looking accident scene on the way back. Feet starting to hurt from the cute slide sandals.

Arrive back in school neighborhood. Grab slice of pizza, orange juice. Report to school.

As soon as arrive in schoolyard, attacked by excited eighth-grade girls in graduation robes. Their eyeliner is in the building, and they do not have keys, can I let them in? Let them in. Then am found by Mrs. Crazy Teacher, now in state of high tension about graduation. I have, she tells me, stuff to sign. Mrs. Principal is "in the back of the church" with it.

I tour around for a while, looking for the 'back of the church'. Finally discover she meant the rooms behind the altar itself, where the priest and altar servers do their prep. I hang around there until Mrs. Principal notices me. "Can I help you?" she asks, a bit too crisply.

I explain. Mrs. Crazy Teacher bustles in, says she has stuff for me to sign, and then gets into an emotional 'thing' with Mrs. Principal because Mrs. Principal has carefully put the diplomas in alphabetical order, and they're not supposed to go in alpha order, but in GRADUATION order. They deal with this for a while. I wander off to put my coat and portfolio behind the piano, and say hello to Mrs. Science Teacher's wife who is playing the flute for us at the graduation, but Mrs. Crazy Teacher grabs me. "Where are you GOING?" she hisses. I explain. She freaks. She HAS the stuff for me to sign.

I sign.

The graduation itself was actually very nice. Leis, mylar balloons, very high grown-up heels on the girls, screaming relatives, smiling grandmothers, and flowers all over the place.

I felt pretty lousy. I won't be teaching there next year. I won't be watching my homeroom class graduate in that church. I don't belong, I'm just being kept on sufferance until they can get the kids out of there (end of NEXT WEEK!) and clean the place up, and give the language arts position to someone else.

I've seen the someone else, although I was not consulted about who it should be. She's younger than I am, taller, thinner, and is apparently a protege of the consultant woman who decided I couldn't teach for beans. She is also, according to some sources, the girlfriend of the stepson of the consultant. The stepson of the consultant has been hired to be next year's sixth grade teacher. He has no teaching experience. This is going to be fun, fun fun, but I won't be there. I will be somewhere else. Doing something else.

Got home at ten-fifteen. Feh!