you'll be somebody's girlfriend

It's been a pretty easy week. I knew where I was going, went there, accomplished some stuff. It's such a nice change having students who respect me (minus a small few) within the first full month of school. They try, they have direction, they're creative, they're honest and up front. Basically: how the hell did I get so lucky? I asked my department head if it was okay if people came to visit. I wasn't sure if they allowed visitors to follow teachers around. I was mostly thinking of when Meg comes to visit for spring break. I don't want to leave her here all day, every day, and she mentioned wanting to see the school. Rebecca said there's no problem. I think Meg will be very jealous of this school and wish she had gone there. haha.
Anyway. Week started off with parent/teacher conferenes. I had less than 15 parents, finished reading The Color of Water, and talked with another new teacher, Ms. H (she teaches three levels of Spanish! holy crap!). We shared wedding photos. She got married in August and has an adorable two year old. Today was an "early release" day. I had no 8th bell, only 2nd and my caf duty. During my cafeteria duty, I got to watch the "gang squad" pull kids in one by one, take some pictures of some of them, question them, search them-- all that fun stuff. Apparently, I missed some crazy stuff go down after school yesterday. One gang (grown men, as one teacher told me), pulled up and surrounded the school because one of their kids was threatened and told he was going to get jumped after school by the rival gang. I know a few of my kids are in gangs. I told them as long as they don't bring any of that crap into class and make a problem for all of us, I didn't want to hear about it. I haven't had a problem.
Cafeteria duty is kind of fun. Not only do I have a group of students who come to say hi and chat, I also get to see kids searched, handcuffed, pulled in to security, interviewed, etc. They aren't usually arrested for anything big. The other day, they caught two girls smoking cigarettes in a bathroom (right by the cafeteria! Did we want to get caught, ladies?) and other cops had to come in. One of my students was in some sort of fight and was in the security box being interviewed about it before suspended. I only have about one student per week that blows past me/doesn't listen/lies to me. Security usually catches 'em in the hallways, though.
Since it was an early release day, I spent the rest of the day (two hours) in professional development. I chose "Unit planning" because NPS uses a special kind of planning called "Understanding by Design" and I kind of wanted to know what that was all about. Funny enough, quite a few other new teachers (to Granby in general, not just first years) were there, too. It helped out a LOT.
Funny moment of the week: Chandra was telling me about this one kid that runs his mouth a lot in class. She kept trying to give him the subtle hint of holding one finger up against her lips (y'know, the "Shhh!!" without any noise). He asked her, "Why do you keep doing that?" She said, "I'm trying to subtly tell you to shut your mouth. You know... there are two people in this world: those that can take the subtle hints and those who need to be yelled at and told again and again what to do. Those that need to be told again and again usually end up in jail. You're kind of small and pretty, someone's just gonna love you and your green eyes. You're gonna be someone's girlfriend." (Or something along those lines) I laughed so hard when she told me this, I couldn't believe she actually told some kid that! And with a straight face! hahahaha.
One funny/strange thing that happened this week: We read a story by Chinua Achebe about a man getting robbed. We were talking about connections to our own lives. The kids were shocked (seriously!) by what I told them about Kalamazoo and my few brushes with being robbed/broken into. That shocked me. Norfolk is bigger, but has less crime than Kzoo. That is crazy and pretty depressing.
David's been gone since Tuesday. His program took a little trip to D.C. and they come back today. It's been weird to be around the apartment alone, but I've had more than enough crap to finish for school.
Today is such a beautiful day. It's sunny out and cool, but not too cool. Just perfect. I wish David was here and we both had free time to go take a bike ride or something. Or I'll just eat the pumpkin fudge we bought to celebrate that it finally feels like fall here. Sounds like a plan.