Winner's Circle

In more upbeat news, I won NANOWRIMO!

I wrote a 50,000 word, mostly coherent novel, set in the Jewish community of Winchester around 1200, in 29 days--I had thirty, but wrapped up yesterday...and I rock.

I even get a cool little doohickey! (See cool doohickey to the right.)

This was a really good thing for me to do this month. It took my mind off the problems at work, and the meds, and all that, and got me focused and working on something. And it paid off really well. I feel super-accomplished.

I am proud of me.

Exit Strategy

It's December on Wednesday, and the new job has pretty much become a disaster.

I didn't want to leave St. Dymphna's. There's a reason I left middle school. I now remember what it was.

Today, my principal had a long talk with my class, and I had a long talk with my principal. And I'm starting to wonder if there is a way out of this before the end of the year.

I had applied to an MFT program, been accepted for the fall, and just didn't go. Because...because money, stuff, new job, whatever.

I'm trying to find out if the application is salvageable, if they can admit me for the spring.

A student loan.

A part-time job.

A way out.

I'm depressed, of course, that's part of it. I'm off the Paxil, on the Zoloft.But how do you treat depression when you spend all day, five days a week, trying to teach kids who don't like you or respect you, and have no qualms about showing it?

It's not exactly the most mental-health-friendly environment, let's put it like that.

I feel like hell. I have to go back tomorrow--thank God tomorrow is Tuesday, my easy day. I still don't know if I can face it. I still don't know if I can get through the day. And the next one. And the next one. So far so good. I haven't cried in front of them yet. Everyone else in the damn school, yes, but my students, no.

I need an exit strategy.

Here is the J's Mealy-Mouthed Take On The Assault

Read it and weep.

BTW, as a life-long human-rights activist, the Balabusta cannot but fail to be amused by JVP's wild endorsement of themselves for disrupting Netanyahu's speech in New Orleans. They unfurled a banner, yelled a slogan, and were kicked out by security. I've done that. I was doing that when I wasn't yet a bat mitzvah. Big whoop.

The kind of bravery you'd expect people who beat up middle-aged ladies to congratulate themselves on.

Jewish Voice for Whaaaa? Again?

Over at Pro-Israel Bay Bloggers, the irrepressible Grant Patel writes up a recent encounter between the poorly named Jewish Voice for Peace and a local pro-Israel activist who was physically attacked and continues to be attacked in words by JVP.

Here are her words. The Balabusta will add that she has met this lady many times, and that she has also seen JVP's choice of 'nonviolent' friends at a number of demonstrations. Given JVP's inability to notice threatening and violent behavior carried out by those they choose to like, I'm not surprised they also fantasize violence by those they attack.

That's all, folks.

"Jewish Voice for Peace" has issued a press release that I attacked several people attending one of their events with pepper spray. They also go on to make absurd allegations regarding my politics and intentions at the meeting.

This is completely bizarre. I am a DISABLED WOMAN (see the legal notice on my car). I carry pepper spray as my only means to defend myself. It IS true that on the evening of November 14, at a JVP meeting, I needed to defend myself. I was physically attacked.

The JVP meeting at Berkeley Senior Center was advertised to the public. I attended this meeting as an individual and not as a member of any organization, in order to deepen my understanding of their perspective on the Middle East conflict.

Ironically, a stated goal of the meeting was to HONOR activists that had recently PHYSICALLY DISRUPTED a speech by Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu. Perhaps I should have understood that as a warning.

THE ATTACK: Around 20 minutes into the meeting, I tried to photograph a woman speaking in support of Israel. Almost immediately, several JVP members surrounded me and tried to take my camera from me. Then they attacked me. They took hold of my arms and would not let me go. They also pushed their chests into me many times and knocked me against a wall. I yelled at them 20 to 30 times to let go of me. They refused to let go of my wrists and forearms and continued to bang their chests into me. They banged me into the wall over a dozen times. Their faces were red from hatred and exertion. As a result of their violence, my wrists and arms are bruised and I am currently suffering serious pain in my lower back. I am unable to work this afternoon and I must take medication for pain relief.

I am a large woman but I am physically frail. As I said, I am disabled.
- I see a pain management physician regularly for chronic back pain. I am unable to move without severe back pain. I have had major surgery on my back. I am unable to stand for more than a couple of minutes without unrelenting back pain and sciatica pain.
- I also have had nine surgeries on my knees which are another main source of pain.
- I have asthma, and I use inhaled steroids daily; the anti-Israel activists’ attack on me exacerbated my asthma and I had to take medicine while at the senior center.
- I also have a serious blood disorder that weakens me. I am currently under treatment by a hematologist/oncologist, and I am on daily chemotherapy.

I am 58 years old. I have a Disabled Person’s license plate for my car. I am physically incapable of overpowering or attacking anybody! The people who attacked me were physically fit and at least 20 years younger than I;

While pleading with the attackers to let me go, I tried to get away but they followed me and kept grabbing my arms. At one point they knocked my camera out of my hand. I bent down to pick it up and tried to walk away. They followed me and continued to grab my arms and shove me into the wall. They isolated me from the rest of the crowd. Because they were beating me up and because I am disabled and could not defend myself otherwise, I sprayed pepper spray into one woman’s face. As soon as I did that, they all backed off from me and let me go.

I resorted to the pepper spray because I feared for my safety and my life!!! I believe that had I not used pepper spray, I would be in the hospital today suffering far more serious injuries. Pepper spray causes extreme discomfort but is unlikely to cause permanent injury. The purpose of pepper spray is to temporarily disable an attacker, to allow time for escape. It worked.

The JVP press release is an outright lie. I cannot and did not attack anyone. I was attacked!

Depression Sucks

Friday was like an nightmare, and it all starts again tomorrow.

I seriously do not know what do. I hate this job. I absolutely hate it. It's like being back in middle school myself.

I spend my weekends crying because I have to go back on Monday.

Zoloft was mailed to me. It's still not here.

NANOWRIMO

National Novel Writer's Month begins on Monday. I plan to do NANOWRIMO, this year!

NANOWRIMO, for those of you who have not encountered it before, is an annual event where, over the thirty days of November, everyone tries to write a first draft of a novel, from soup to nuts. 50,000 word target. Many Internet forums where people post in to ask what kind of siege engines were used in the Bronze Age, and how many times a week it's really OK to feed your kids cereal instead of cooking.

Right now I feel like hell. I'm depressed, work is cruddy, and I'm not feeling really happy all around. I need a distraction. I need a project. I need something to take me out of myself that doesn't require leaving the house. NANO!!

I have three possible NANO projects in mind. YOU, being someone who reads this blog, get to vote on the project! These are the options:

1. A mystery novel set in Renaissance Florence, the sequel to the recently completed one. In this one, Ginevra's sister Anna, the nun, comes to town, and murder, holiday hilarity and multiple sets of young lovers with murky agendas ensue.

2. A mystery novel set in the medieval English Jewish community. Avigai's cousin's daughter is missing, and as she investigates, long-buried secrets from his escape from the 1190 massacre of York's Jews begin to surface.

3. A sprawly, relationship-driven, Bronze Age chick-lit novel about the women in King David's life. Nitzevet, Michal, Avigayil, Batsheva, Tamar, Avishag...the mother, the wives, the daughter...David's life is filled with women with dramatic stories. And very strong voices.

Please put in your vote for one of these options by midnight on Sunday!

Wouldn't Have Believed It If I Hadn't Seen It

So, today, one of my students dropped a bag of candy on the floor.

It was rather a big bag of candy. He likes to tote lots of it around, even when it is not about to be Halloween. He dropped it. It was an accident. 100 individually wrapped Warheads (little sour things), hit the floor.

I looked up. I said, "Oh, dear, hon, we need to pick those up." I walked toward him.

I saw several kids start to move. I thought, because I am a MORON, "Oh, they'll help."

Then they dived onto the spilled candy, pushing, shoving, screaming, and cramming handfuls into their pockets.

One boy was flat on the floor in front of me, prone, kicking his feet, and protecting his loot with his body.

These are eleven and twelve year olds from middle class families, attending a 'nice' parochial school.

The kindest thing I can say is that they looked like a group of four or five year olds after Dad or Uncle gets fed up and breaks the pinata with a couple of purposeful whacks.

It was far more remiscent of a pack of animals closing in for the kill on the Discovery Channel.

It was, to be honest, disturbing as hell.

I'm goin' back to school

Had a small realization this last week--teaching is not doing it for me. I was fairly happy working at St. Dymphna High, but I was never able to get a normal complement of classes, and frankly, every other place I've worked as a teacher, I've been sad, stressed, and miserable.

I'm done. I'll see if I can do that MFT program I applied for last year, I'm thinking about law school, but I need to do something else, something you can make a little more money at, and not have to deal with classroom management ALL GODDAMN DAY.

How can you tell?

I'm trying to figure out how you can tell if you're just chemically depressed and going through a transition to a new job, or if you actually have realized that you don't like what you're doing for a living much and should change.

Bumping Along

I'm sad. I'm now also on these alarming Vitamin D pills which I'm supposed to take once a week for eight weeks and then once a month. I told the Balebos not to be surprised if sunlight starts to come out of my ears.

But so far, just sad.

I am STRUGGLING with, well, everything. I feel sad about struggling. I have whined too much at my teacher boards and been told to stop. I'm still sad. And frustrated as hell.

There is nothing, nothing at all, like spending ten minutes calming a class down every SINGLE time, when you know that their not calming down at once with a light ring of the chimes is a moral failing of your own. Do it over. And over. And over. And over. And over.

I wanna go back to high school.

Confession is good for the soul, they say

Today was my Weird Bullying Issues day. Won't go into too many details--just spent half the day with the Vice Principal saying, "What would you advise?" and the other half talking to weeping children who didn't think they'd get caught.

This was at the end of a week that started off very badly, after a Friday that dropped the bottom out of my newly not-on-antidepressants state and left me weeping and shaking all weekend. I came back feeling like hell, and rebuilt a little. I still don't feel great, but I'm OK.

Anyway, toward the end of the day, I caught a kid sitting at another kid's desk, going through it. The desk of the kid who's been complaining that his stuff is going missing, and junk being put into his desk when he's away from it. After I spent five minutes this morning talking about the terrible stuff that would happen to any child caught messing with another kid's desk.

I kind of leaped at him, when I registered what I was seeing and said WHATAREYOUDOING, and he started to say something, and I snapped that he was in SOMUCHTROUBLE and sent him back to his own desk...and then didn't get a chance to talk to him after school because he escaped during dismissal--so I talked to the vice principal again instead.

And I realized something.

I am being weird with the kids because being back in middle school is scaring the bejaysus out of me. The last time I was in middle school was a bad, bad year. Around January, I got a GLOWING review from my principal, and literally a week later, a parent wandered into my classroom at a bad moment, and I had a dust-up with the Education Expert, and suddenly I was persona non grata at that school.

And I am so afraid of it happening again. And when the kids misbehave, my blood runs cold, because if ANY child misbehaves EVER, I figure it's going to be 'don't let the door hit your tush on the way out' again. So I'm trying to get them behave by sheer force of will--and getting angry too easily because I'm SCARED TO DEATH.

And I can't do that. I have to teach the kids. Like they are, not like I want them to be in the future. I have to deal with their stuff now. I have to be real with them and their parents now. And if my best isn't good enough, that will have to be too damn bad. I am working hard, I'm being as sane and consistent and strict as I can manage under the new-school, wacky-talky class conditions, and I'll get better. But I can't scream DOYOUKNOWHOWMUCHTROUBLEYOU'REINMISTER at an eleven-year-old boy because I'm afraid other grownups will blame me if he does something wrong. He will, probably do something wrong. He's eleven. And human.

I will probably do a lot of wrong things too. Because I'm thirty-seven and human. I didn't handle it right today. But I need to stop being so afraid.

Also, I need to get my Vitamin D count up to at least fifty from THIRTEEN. My doctor has spoken.

Not feeling so great

Friday was the point at which my post-Paxil calmness plummeted in the face of 28 sixth graders who absolutely refused to shut up.

I cried through a three-day weekend. I went back to school today, and it was lousy, lousy, lousy.

You want to know what the lousiest part was? It was the part where I had to ring the 'attention' signal to get attention in the middle of a transition to math class.Why? Someone's backpack was missing.

So why did they ignore it? Well, it turns out that they HAD to get to math class, because Sister is 'strict'.

I, of course, am chopped liver.

Did I mention it got up to ninety-five degrees by late afternoon?

I have a headache, I want to cry all the time, I am furious with my class, and with myself, and I'm overheated. It's really, really special.

I want to be back at St. Dymphna's.

Sixth Grade Is Hard. And I'm In Mourning.

OK. My mother-in-law died today, I found out after school, so this is a day that will live in memory, but before that...

My sixth graders, who I have for English, religion and social studies, are in revolt. I started using the vocabulary book that was given to me by the school, which is rigorous but good.

They can't pass the tests. They do lousy on them. After the third one with too many Fs and no As, I decided, OK, we have to adapt. So I told them, and read them a note saying, that we would keep using the book, but we would do a unit over two weeks instead of one, taking the spelling test one week and the vocabulary the next. We would make flashcards, do word studies, more in-depth stuff. I just came from high school, where even my freshmen would look at a list, sort of shrug, and learn it. So, I tell the kids, we'll do it slow, with more care and more activities, and they WILL get better grades, and they WILL learn more.

And they exploded. Some of what came out of our impromptu class meeting:

There is not enough homework. And the homework is too hard.
Can't we go on doing a vocabulary test every week?
It's my fault for not teaching it right.
I don't make learning fun.
Ms. Fifth Grade gave them donuts for getting As on spelling tests. They need motivation. How come no donuts?
I take too long to give directions.
I don't take long enough giving directions.
They don't like the kid they're sitting next to.
If I gave examples, like about money, or fashion, they'd learn.

Then, they complained that it was the way I grade that made them get bad grades. I take off TWO points for every thing they get wrong. If I only took off one point, they'd get good grades!

I showed them the percentages on the board, and explained that I give two points for each correct answer as well, so this is having no impact on their overall grade.

A couple of them came in to talk after school as well. They're mad at the math teacher too, because he says the highest grade in the group is a C-plus, and if he gave them more time, they'd get better grades, also he canceled the test because the people who weren't ready asked for more time. And everyone is saying that they're going to have bad grades at the progress reports, and they're MAD!!!

I tried to treat their concerns with respect, and a little humor. I felt like running away and never coming back.

And then after this, while I'm brainstorming tech projects with the computer guy, my husband walks in, and I know as soon as I see his face that Tante S. is gone.

I'll feel better after I eat a lot of carbs and get a good night's sleep, and cry some more. But DAMN.

And the grief, the real grief, hasn't quite gotten through yet. And my heart is breaking for my husband, and I don't know what in God's name I can do for him.

Me, Without Paxil

So, I'm off the Paxil, and I'm off the Prozac I took to get off the Paxil, and this is me, typing unmedicated for the first time in about five years.

I took the Paxil to get through the horrible time at the first school I taught at, and, as it happens, to get through horrible times at the next two schools I taught at. I never planned to be on it for five years. I never planned to spend nearly that much of my life on antidepressants.

I feel OK.

I'm starting a new year of work. I've done a week and a half with the sixth graders at St. Attracta School, and I think it's going OK--but it's hard, it's always hard, to start off in a new setting. And on a deep, deep level, I am not convinced I can teach successfully, even going into my seventh year of it.

That said, this weekend has been a great success so far. Last night was Niamh's bachelorette party, complete with burlesque dancers, halal barbecue and champagne, and despite my terrible fears about it (the bridal shower was high stress), it went off beautifully, I think. Niamh was lovely, wearing a Statue-of-Liberty-like crown of glow-sticks, and we had a really lovely party.

On family front, stress. The Husband's Tante S., his mom's parter, is in the hospital and the doctors don't think she's coming out. It's hard. The Husband is sad, and stressed. Me too.

I don't feel depressed. I feel different. But I'm going to go on without the Paxil, and I'm going to contact my NP Ob-Gyn to get my Tay-Sachs screening done.

A Long, Good Life

On Saturday, I went to a funeral mass for the mother of a friend of my father's. SHe was eighty-nine, born in Manila in 1920. She was just about to get her degree when the Japanese invaded.

A truly remarkable life. I was able to hear much of it when my father the WWII buff and I took her out to lunch a few years ago.

Right before she died, her son and daughter-in-law presented me with one of her many statues of Mary. It now sits in my classroom, and I plan to send them photos of it in its new home with a thank you and condolence letter.

My Classroom is Gorgeous

I am tired.

There are inspiration posters attached to every object in the room, including a sandwich board on the hamster. (OK, not really. I don't have a hamster yet.)

Did Feminism Succeed? Or Not?

When you can't tell if feminism succeeded beyond its supporters' wildest dreams, or failed miserably:

I'm putting my classroom together with some help from a young lady who was in my high school freshman class a couple of years ago. She attended the school I'm working at now, K-8. She tells me that she told her best friend, a boy who was in my class, and also went through elementary school with her, to come and help out tomorrow.

In passing, I learn that he broke up with his girlfriend, to whom he had been glued for the past two years. "And he was so upset," Mary Kate continues, "and he really needed someone to talk to, and I was there for him. But I was kinda mad, like he gets a girlfriend and we never got to hang out until they broke up? Like, it's supposed to be bros before hos, sorry about my language, Mrs. Bluejeans."

It's Ten O'Clock. Do You Know Where Your Grandparents Are?

When I was a little girl, there were some things that I knew about the Japanese. I knew that they were into cherry blossoms and robots, and that their students worked harder in school than Americans, and did complicated math we had never even heard of, for example.

When I got older, I learned that Japanese Women Don't Get Old or Fat, and that the natural, sea-based, frugal Japanese diet allowed them to have more centenarians than anywhere else on earth, or at least more than most places.

Anyway, as far as I know, the Japanese still like cherry blossoms and technology, the exchange students I see on BART are all skinnier than I, and I'm sure that miso soup is actually very good for you as well as being delicious.

However, it also seems that the number of centenerians in Japan may be, at least in part, due to the apparent tendency of people in Tokyo to lose track of the elderly.

(Cue Ellen deGeneres. "Exercise is good for old people. My grandmother started walking five miles a day when she was seventy. She's eighty-two now, and we don't know where the hell she is.")

It all started with Sogen Kato. Mr. Kato was visited by authorities with birthday wishes on what would have been his 111th, but they uncovered instead a story that seems to be wasted on Japan. William Faulkner could have done it justice. Suffice to say that Mr. Kato has probably been dead for about thirty years, and the family never knocked on his bedroom door because he was cranky about being disturbed.

All right, this could happen to any city where there are crazy eccentric families: any city. The problem is that, apparently, they've also misplaced Tokyo's oldest woman. Fusa Furuya was born 113 years ago, and was supposedly living with her daughter, 79. Daughter says they haven't been close in many years, and she thought Mom was living with her brother.

The address she had for her brother is a vacant lot.

Health Minister Akira Nagatsuma is now on a mission to track down all the other Japanese centenarians, and these two weird and high-profile cases seem to have sparked an awareness in Japanese authorities that it may not be enough to assume that elderly people are being taken care of by their families. "Understanding the whereabouts of the elderly and their situation is a very important problem," Nagatsuma told the press.

The mayor of Mrs. Furuya's supposed home district added: "We would like to confirm the security of the elderly from now on by meeting them face to face."

This seems like a good start.

Prop 8 Goes Down

And I have already gotten my first engagement announcement!

:)

Writing Again

I'm sitting down today and writing for the first time in a while...