The Train Has Arrived…

The ego trip is over…thank you all for boarding with me, I’m back to my regular scheduled neuroses…

Seriously–Haylo, Sora–thanks so much for the book appreciation…I was worried (I know the emphasis was on character development as opposed to blowing up bad guys–that doesn’t always go over well…) spiral, penguinpants–so nice to have you here! Everyone else, you knows I luvs ya (and I will still be doing some nail biting…now that I know that you guys are getting the book, I’ll be hoping you did not buy in vain:-) But, on to some ranting about work and some fiber content…

About the work ranting–

I knew last year that they might be taking the AP class away from me…my administrator doesn’t particularly like me (he seems to feel it’s rude for me to knit during staff meetings…I seem to feel it’s rude for him to make unrealistic demands on us to change our curriculum and give us no prep time to do it…you know, that sort of thing…) but apparently the teacher who is going to be teaching the class next year has been telling kids that he’s going to be the teacher, and no one has informed me.

Of course the weirdness with the nightmare in a size six didn’t help…but, still…I mean–I started this program. I took a bunch of seniors in a school with such horrible test scores that they’re threatening to send in the state to fix us, and I get between a 58-70% passing rate on a test that stands for college credit. And the only real requirements I have EVER asked for are, A. A basic ability to write a paragraph, B. A fluid grasp of the language (language learners welcome,though) and C. a willingness to participate. I built this program in my department–I took it from a teacher who got the class because he was the (then) principals crony from his old digs and who almost killed it (five took it, 1 passed) and I made it into a school staple. Don’t you think, if they are going to give it to another teacher, they owe me the fucking courtesy of a warning?

I need to get out of here–that’s all there is too it. And it hurts to admit that because it’s been a good teaching week. My classes and I have finally come to a friendly detente, I’m finally happy to be here, and for the first time all year I feel the things I loved about teaching in the first place–useful, competent, and important to the people (students) I worked with.

I am fat and loud and blunt and cranky, and I have also had a motherfuckingshitkickerbendoverandtakeit kind of year… I am not an attractive presentation in a suit and an organized desk. Not at all. Still–it pains me (in my heart and other secret places) to have the guy who had this class before me–and who did not, in their words, try to stop the party that my little nightmare clique had become–tell his Juniors that he’d be teaching this class next year before anybody told me.

C’est La Vie. I promised my husband I’d print out a couple of packets for agents this weekend and send them on Monday. In a way, I don’t want to do this–it’s just one more admission that I’m dissatisfied with a job I used to be really proud of. It’s also, in a way, a kind of self-destructive escapism for me, since the odds of my books getting picked up by an agent and a publisher are about the odds of Jensen Ackles picking me up in a gas station on the way to work…(except, of course, the fact that I’d be obligated my love of Mate to turn darling Jensen down.)

But that’s depressing–Let’s move on to the fiber content, which (although pictureless) is kind of fun…

February was going to be the month of turning FO’s into WIP’s–it only worked like that for the Arwyn cardigan, of course–I might have had better luck if the identity thieving crackhead hadn’t made off with my damned sock, because that meant I had to start a whole other sock, and given my time frame, that hurt. However, now that the month is over, I’ve been obliged by impending babies (we’re down to 3–hip hip huzzah…) to start one set of socks (for a student) one set of sockies and a hat (for a teacher) and one baby blanket from this book . The baby blanket I’m especially looking forward to–it’s got intarsia stars and moon on it, and I’m doing it in yellow, orange and blue cotton classic…I’ve never worked w/this yarn before, and I’ll probably regard it with all the warmth that I’d regard a cottonmouth snake when this is over, but right now it’s bright and shiny and rich, so I’m kind of turned on. The sockies and hat (all) are going to be out of Lorna’s Laces–and that yarn really does it for me, so it’s going to be sort of like that Seinfeld thing–I may be obligated to sleep with this yarn, but that doesn’t mean I don’t enjoy it.

But thanks again, everybody, for the warm wishes and the praise (let me turn my face into that praise-shine again…I got chilly for a moment:-) The weekend in cali promises to be SPE-FUCKING-TACULAR–I wish us all days in the park with little people, happy hugs, and no 8″by2″ personal car-movies of the 3 year old dumping cheez-it crumbs on his little sister to gales of delighted laughter… because I got one of those this morning, and it was very funny, but highly embarrassing when I dropped them off at the baby-sitters, and we were all orange.

CIOU!