This weekend, I took four seventh and eighth grade girls camping on the Eastern Shore. Those of you were with me at my last blog know that I also did this last year. And may remember that I returned rather battered. This year's group was a little less...into it, but we still managed to have a good time and I bear no physical signs of the trip. There was a canoe trip, a campfire on the beach, lots of hiking and some adventure challenges (this year I did not climb the tower and zipline down, although I did climb 50 feet up a tree and swing down to the ground: it was fun and a little less terrifying). There were few incidents and only two minor accidents and everyone returned to DC late yesterday afternoon a little better off, I think. I mean, really, two sunny/warm days playing in the woods overlooking the bay - how could you NOT be better off?!
My birthday is tomorrow. I turn 27. I know this is not old, but I can't help but feeling like it sounds old. Or, at least, older. Not that this is of special importance to me, but it is kind of interesting to think about: tomorrow I will be as old as my mom was when she had me. I am incredibly content with my life right now - I have a great group of friends, a boyfriend who makes me really happy, a job that I almost always enjoy (even when I'm being apathetic about it), and the city where I live is finally feeling like home - but you can't help but think that, at this age, my mom was married with a job she also enjoyed in a city she loved and a baby on the way. It just makes you think about generational changes and the like. While the majority of my friends are married, only one has a child and even that is incredibly recent. Anyway. No big parties or plans this year. Tonight I'll do shopping/dinner/cake with Elizabeth and tomorrow Brian is taking me to Tabard Inn and then it will be done. It will be good, don't get me wrong, and I'm looking forward to tomorrow; I just wasn't feeling the big celebration this year.
Brian would be the boyfriend who makes me so happy. I mentioned him in my last substantial post. It's been about two months since our first date and while things progressed very slowly at first, it is wonderful now. I had forgotten how easy it is to fall into a routine with someone - for things you didn't have in your life before to so easily become commonplace. And I was not at all prepared for that little bit of a loss that you feel when those things don't happen all of the time. So. Yeah. He's wonderful. And things are good. And that's probably all I have to say about that.
Work is winding down, which is completely mind-blowing. The AP exam is two weeks from today, the seniors transition off campus in four weeks and school is over in...well, it might be too soon to think about that. But still, I legitimately started thinking about senior exams today and once they are off campus, my work load lessens considerably as I only teach from 8a-10a and then from 3p-3:45p. It is crazy and fun to think that this year is very nearly almost over. Although, and maybe it is just me, this is the hardest time of year for me. I can hang with it through March, which most people don't like, but right about now I start to get really apathetic about things. Not that I love my students or am interested in my content any less, but it just gets progressively harder to be super excited from here on out.
Today in AP I had a rather upsetting interaction with a student. We started civil liberties today and I was lecturing on the three main reasons that civil liberties become an issue. One is cultural conflict and I use the boy scouts ban on gay troop leaders as one example. I'm about to explain how (and why) the Court upheld the ban, etc when P interjects to say that she understands that though. I pause and she continues on to say that if she were a mom she wouldn't want a gay man looking at her son and touching him. I pushed back a lot bc I think that is insane logic, not to mention ignorant and a little hateful, but I don't think she got it. In the end, I was using myself as an example saying that I am a straight woman who, like a gay man, is attracted to men and yet she thinks it is okay for me to teach boys. Her reasoning was that it is okay bc I am not attracted to them and wouldn't touch them sexually. At this point, N interjects (in a mildly exasperated tone) "being gay doesn't make you a pedophile," but she still wouldn't concede the point. It was awful. I'm not even as upset as I should be - or as I think I should be - I'm just disappointed. Disappointed in her for not being more open-minded, in her parents for teaching her that and disappointed in myself for not pushing her more. I mean, I know I did what I could and I know the time and place were not right to push it more, but that doesn't mean I can't wish that it had gone better. Or differently. ::sigh:: I suppose all teachers have stories like this one, but...seriously?!
2 comments:
I am glad about this boy. Sounds like good stuff.
As for the student, I am constantly amazed that my students, who complain (and rightly so) about injustice aimed at them all the time, can't see that their own attitudes about sexuality are just as bigoted. It's really frustrating. I try to tell myself that part of it is the age they're at-- so insecure about their own sexuality, and that as they get out into the world, they'll get better--- but I don't know it that's really the case either. Anyway, I didn't call you last night because I'm hella sick and slept right through that time. Tonight, though, it is my only plan.
I so need to email you back. Excited to see your RSVP .... and yet.. I wish I had weekends to spend with you. Fly out to DC... hang out... go for a K street martini (yum...) or just watch chick flicks and popcorn. While our views often differ - I feel sometimes like you're writing my words. make sense???
Glad things are good. You so deserve it.
B
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