i hope you already know about this

Imagine this:
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It's hours before your wedding.
You're celebrating with your friends.
You're leaving the club with your friends.
You get shot at 50 times.
The people shooting at you? Police officers.
And the courts find them not guilty.

That's what happened to Sean Bell and his family.

death and the student body

One of my students is convinced she will die soon. She was mostly joking, but the students have been discussing death more and more recently. The biggest reason behind this is because, in the last month, three students have died or been involved in causing someone's death.
The first was a kid I didn't have who was shot in his neighborhood. I have a lot of students who were friends with this student and teachers who had him as a student that really admired how hard he was trying to make something of himself, despite his past.
The second was an incident that happened right before school came back from break. Most of my students kept talking about a 17 year old Crip that shot a 21 year old Blood three times in front of a Game Stop in the middle of the day. One of my students even lived right behind the Game Stop. During 7th bell last week, I finally got the name of the 17 year old kid after hearing about it all day. He was one of my students, one that was in my class until he beat the living daylights out of another kid (who also happened to be one of my students). They kicked him out of Granby much too gladly. The students in my 4th bell were discussing it today, since, for possibly the first time ever, I knew something before they did. One student said, "I can't believe we were in class with a murderer!", another was just completely shocked. The kid was strange, but used to be really good. It seemed like he needed to fit in, belong, prove something and now his ass is in jail from going way too far with it.
It's strange that they were talking about former-student, now-inmate today because the third death happened yesterday. I was updating my grades in the workroom and Rebecca mentioned to Laura that some of her students may not be in school or will be very distracted/upset because one of their good friends died. She mentioned the girl's name and it was a student I had last year in my 3rd bell. She was on homebound due to cancer (and, if I remember correctly, brain-related, possibly tumors), but came back during second semester. She was an amazing girl: incredibly intelligent, friendly, kind, hard-working, beautiful (she showed me some of her modeling pictures--they were amazing!) and funny. People are planning on wearing pink tomorrow for her.

It's been a strange start for 2008 in our school.

sweet kitty.

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Originally uploaded by alipants.

You were always the cutest and the best to chase around the house. You were always forgiving and ready to be pet, scratched and purr in return. You were always the one that grabbed people's attention. You were the first one I remember getting, since Daisy and Fluff came before my memory really kicked in. You were always sweet, always friendly. You had the best meow in the world, and you were always the best to scare-- you jumped in quite amazing ways. My friends always came up with great nicknames for you. I pulled your fur off all my clothes more than the other cats'. You didn't look a day over 5 years old (Dinah was 18! in this picture). I'm not sad in the way of crying, but I'm sad because I knew this day would come that one of the four cats we grew up with would die. This also means that Megan and I are no longer kids, that we have entered adulthood and that, as David put it, "it's an end to an era". I'll miss seeing you, hearing your unique meow, and having your small little fluffball in my lap the next time I'm home.

incredibly difficult and uncomfortably close

This week has been rough. Being far away from everyone who has known me for longer than a month or two definitely is not helping in finding closure and comfort. Grandpa's passing away has brought out every little drop of loneliness and homesick feelings that I had tucked away to wait out the transition of moving. Now it's going full blast and I am desperately craving being near people who I've known and who've known me before August.
I was doing pretty good in school with dealing with everything. I had a little less patience, cried a little in front of one of my classes when I thanked them for being really well behaved (embarassing) and generally more exhausted than usual. As long as I kept my mind off of everything else and focused on what was going on in class, I was fine. Last night, it all came crashing down. I left early today.
Thankfully, everyone at school has been very understanding and very kind. Chandra ordered me to not come to school tomorrow, but we settled on my leaving early today. Rebecca was very understanding-- I couldn't ask for a better department head. I'm going to apologize to my co-teacher for giving her very short notice on having to cover 8th bell today (it was shortened to about a half hour because of the PSATs). I thought I could keep it together, but last night and today everything sunk in completely. Jerilyn (one of the teachers I share a room with. I'm in her room 3 times, I like her room the best) had a similar situation in her life, so it was nice to talk to someone who understands. My students have given me hugs, kept it quieter and more mellow in class (if they knew. I told only one class up front, at the beginning of class, that i was going through a difficult time and needed them to try and keep the usual rowdiness in check a little and try to make me laugh a lot, as they usually do), and written notes to me in their journal. One student almost made me cry (again) in class when he said, "You know... he's never really gone, he's always right here" and pointed to his heart. Sweet kids.
Basically, I'm avoiding being alone or not keeping myself busy with grading, planning, playing SimCity, singing at the top of my lungs in my car, dancing like a crazy woman--anything to get me through this, keep my stuff together so I can keep being a mildly successful first year teacher.

words can't even begin

I love you and I'll miss you a lot.