Not a Wasted Word

My 7th and 8th grade art teacher is finally retiring after this year from my “other school” (the one I travel to for one period a day). She clearly has a lot of anxiety about leaving her program and very much wants to find someone to fill her spot sooner rather than later so she has some time to show this person the ropes.

She somehow got it into her head that I would be the perfect person to replace her, even though I don’t have a credential in teaching art, and have only taught it once a long time ago (for a couple of years).

I don’t want to just turn her down, because she was my very favorite teacher in middle school and her class brought me the only joy those two years afforded me, so I’ve actually thought about it a bit. It would mean I’d get to stay at one school all the time…

But I’m pretty sure I am not an art teacher. I’ve taught Spanish for 15 years, and for all the angst I have about whether or not I should stay at my job, I’ve never really considered teaching anything else.

And yet… I have another one of those professional developments this Saturday and I find the thoughts fueled by imposter syndrome rearing their ugly heads again. My best friend at work will be looking for a high school job in the spring and I am reminded that I will most likely be stuck where I am forever. If I taught art, I wouldn’t have to take a pay cut, or lose any of the perks I’ve earned with my seniority, and I’d still get to start over.

I really don’t know. I’m realizing, as I consider (however tenuously) the possibility, how much of my identity is wrapped up in teaching Spanish. Not just professionally but personally. I have really enjoyed learning the language all these years, constantly striving to get better. And yet, there is a part of me that feels like I will never reach the level of fluency I hope to achieve – that it will forever be a goal out of my reach. How frustrating will that be?

When I saw my high school Spanish teacher at the professional development last month, he asked me if I spoke to my kids in Spanish. I said that I tried, but that I wasn’t very consistent. He agreed that it’s hard, and admitted that to him (he is not a native speaker either) it feels artificial, like he’s forcing something that will never come naturally.

That really rang true to me, and as I heard it I knew he was putting words to a feeling I have never been able to articulate.

How many times have I written hear about dissatisfaction and my job? So. Many. Times. Can I really just walk away from this without thinking it through? And how do I consider it seriously when I have no idea what it might even mean?

I do love Spanish in a way I love few things in life. I adore the language, and when I’m understanding it, or speaking it, I feel like it’s almost a super power. There is part of me that revels in the reality that I will always be a student of it, that there will always be something more to learn.

But there are also parts of me that wonder what I’m really doing, wondering if I’ll regret chasing after a muse I may never catch.

And of course, even if I wanted the job, the administrators might not give it to me. I don’t have the right credential, and if I taught art they’d have to find someone else to teach Spanish…

When I think about teaching art it doesn’t make me all that excited. Mostly I am considering the possibility of a change, because I plan to reach for 20 more years and the thought of doing this for that much longer is stifling. Change can be really important, especially for me, and I feel like I have to at least think about it. These opportunities don’t come around every day.

I made the Mabel light-up sweater. I’m pretty stoked by how it came out.

I couldn’t find a purple sweater when I first started looking online, so when I found a soft (this is important because my daughter cares very much how her clothes feel) dark blue one at JCPenney’s for super cheap, I jumped on it. I got the sweater, AND pink skirt for $15!

I’ve had the felt for a little while but I finally made the cutouts this weekend. I printed bubble letters and stars from online so they’d be perfect, but I had to wing it for the rainbow and clouds. I think they turned out pretty good.

I first used a string of bigger lights, but half way through half the lights went out! I was so discouraged. But it was a blessing in disguise because some smaller strings I had worked out much better. I had opted for bigger lights because I thought the smaller ones I already had weren’t bright enough, but after I changed the batteries they were plenty bright.

I am SO RELIEVED the first string went out when it did. It was not working well but I wouldn’t have turned back without needing to. Also, what if half the strand had gone out after I put the whole thing in?!

There are four smaller light strands woven into the sweater at this point: one for the name, one for the rainbow and one for the starts on each each sleeve. I tied the battery packs into the sweater with yarn, but they are small and thin so they aren’t noticeable. The felt is glued on. I used a fabric glue and it doesn’t seem to be working great so I may go back over it with my glue gun.

The rest of her costume is just the pink skirt, a headband and a sparkly pair of mary janes she already had. Oh and her Waddles stuffie.

I don’t usually make Halloween costumes so I am pretty excited by how this one turned out. It’s going to be awesome when she is out trick-or-treating in the dark.

The voter suppression that is taking place right now is really getting me down. It’s one thing for one raging imbecile (who happens to be our president) to say and do horrible, unforgivable things, but it’s another for a political party to systematically chip away at the voting rights of this country’s citizens so they can remain in power even though the majority of the population does not believe in their causes or policies.

I will be quite honest here, and it’s embarrassing for me to say, but I did not pay much attention to politics before the 2016 election. I read some articles here and there during Obama’s two terms, especially when the Affordable Care Act was being passed, but before that I really did not know what the what was going on in Washington DC. I didn’t realize that the Republican Party had been passing laws to restrict voting rights for decades, or that the talking points they use now to explain away their president’s racist, misogynist behavior and comments, have been in their employ for just as long.

{And yes, I realize that in my ignorance, I was absolutely part of the problem. My only saving grace is that I have ALWAYS voted.}

On the way to Legoland, my husband and I listened to the first season of the podcast Slow Burn, an eight-part mini-series about Watergate. It was so well made, and there was so much about the whole ordeal that I didn’t know, which made it even more interesting.

There were two things that struck me about the whole scandal. The first was how familiar the news coverage felt, at times it was almost like deja vu, especially it commented on the tactics Nixon used to thwart the Justice Department’s investigation. The second was how far the majority of the Republican Party went to defend Nixon, even as it became increasingly apparent he was not only lying, but blatantly obstructing justice.

In the end, it was heartening to hear that so many Republicans on the special committee ultimately voted to impeach Nixon, many of them stating that if they failed to do so, they would be destroying the constitution as we know it. Still, that was the part that felt least familiar, and I realized that I have almost no faith that Republicans (or enough Republicans) in the House or Senate would go against their party to protect the constitution, or the office of the President, from the man currently occupying it.

Every day I read another horrifying article about states that are passing laws that so brazenly diminish the voting rights of minorities. It’s really hard for me to understand how anyone can call themselves a Republican with a clear conscious right now. I am really struggling to feel empathy, or be understanding. It will be hard to visit my relatives next year, knowing that they still identify with a party that has such a long history of stripping others of their most basic, and essential rights. It’s one thing to argue about taxes or debate about immigration policy, its quite another to approve, even passively, of citizens being systematically silenced in a country they are proud to call a democracy.

I don’t know. I’m embarrassed to only be learning of the true extent of this now, I mean in a real, substantive way. I know I need to do more than just write postcards to voters, but it’s hard to feel like my efforts will make a difference when one party has spent decades ensuring that it won’t.

So I guess that is my attempt at a political post. I don’t frequently broach these topics as I am not well versed in politics and recognize I have nothing of consequence to say. But today I felt like I had to say this.

Analogous

My throat started hurting (a lot) on Tuesday night, I saw the doctor Wednesday afternoon, and started my prescription early Thursday afternoon (taking 2 doses Thursday), and only on Sunday afternoon did I really start feeling better.

The only way I got through driving to LA and seeing friends and driving to San Diego and the first day of Legoland was ibuprofen. Lots, and lots, of ibuprofen. SO MUCH IBUPROFEN. I didn’t start feeling better after 24 hours of antibiotics, or 48 hours, or 72 hours, or even 96 hours! It took over four days of antibiotics to start feeling better. Strep is no fucking joke. (And WebMD lied to me.)

Yesterday it still hurt to eat and lunch was very painful but then later in the afternoon I seemed to turn a corner and suddenly felt much better. My jaw still aches at night, and I still can’t open my mouth all the way, but this evening I feel like my almost my normal self. It’s so, so nice.

We had a great time at Legoland. I will write more about it promptly. Tomorrow we drive home. I also plan to write about driving 500 miles in an electric car.

But right now the moral of the story is don’t get strep. Ever.

Seriously. It’s the worst.

I got hit with strep this week, and I got hit really, really hard.

My throat really hurt on Tuesday night, but only on the right side. I thought maybe I had an ear infection, and since we had travel plans, I made an appointment for the next afternoon.

There was no sign of an ear infection but she swabbed me for strep and sure enough, Thursday morning I got the results, which were positive.

That same morning I saw the tell-tale white spots on my throat.

I went to work Thursday because it’s our block day and I knew there wouldn’t be a sub for me and my colleagues would be asked to cover my long 90 minute classes. Also, I was going to be gone Friday and Tuesday already and no sub had picked up those jobs either, so my colleagues would be covering me then too. I made sure to use tons of hand sanitizer and stay away from my students.

But by lunch I had a fever and felt awful so I had someone cover the last hour of my last class and went home. I think what happened was I let my ibuprofen lapse and the pain and fever got so bad so fast. I was sobbing as I waited in line for my antibiotics at the pharmacy. Swallowing especially was excruciating.

I went to bed at 6pm on Thursday night, with the plan of seeing how felt in the morning and making a game-time decision about our trip. We were supposed to drive down Friday, stay in LA one night to see my college friends Saturday then drive to San Diego Saturday night before hitting up Legoland Sunday and Monday.

All the articles said I’d feel a lot better after 24 hours of antibiotics, and I was able to take two doses the first day, so when I woke up feeling not awful on Friday morning (I took a lot of ibuprofen during the night) I decided we should go for it. Mostly I didn’t want to lose the money we’d spent on the hotel in LA, but also I was worried about finding available chargers on the drive down on a Saturday.

We made it down to LA and I even drove the first half, but I still feel horrible and it’s only a steady stream of high doses of ibuprofen that is keeping me going. I really hope tomorrow, after four doses of antibiotics I feel better, because right now I can’t open my mouth to take a bite, my lymph node is so swollen. Thank god it’s only on the right side of my throat or I’d be totally out of commission.

I thought I had had strep before, but holy shit I’ve never had anything like this. It’s so, so painful. By the end of the day I just want to cry. (I do cry actually, quite a bit.)

I hope I can sleep and that tomorrow I feel better. Mostly I hope no one else in my family get this, because oh man, it is the worst.

I got that letter written today, the one defending my program. I’m going to have my husband edit it before I show it to the other foreign language teacher in our district, and then to my principal and AP. Hopefully I’ll be sending it off to the board and superintendent later this week.

I feel better now that I wrote it. And I’m glad I went to the professional development day. I ended up running into my junior year Spanish 3 teacher, who was also at the training. It was really great to see him, and we had lunch, and it was just a really awesome way to spend an hour of my day. We had a really interesting and substantive conversation, and I walked away feeling better than I had in a long time.

I also saw some other people I know, like the Spanish teacher that just left my mom’s school last year, the woman who long-term subbed for me when I was on maternity leave with my daughter, and the French teacher at the neighboring town’s middle school (who came to watch me teach last year). It was nice to be reminded that I am a part of a kind of professional community, even if I’m alone on my own campus. Maybe if I keep going to these trainings that feeling of community will grow (there are four more sessions that I already signed up for this year and then I can go to different strands in the coming years).

I got a lot done this weekend, and it feels good to check boxes and cross things off my lists. We are headed to Legoland this weekend for our son’s birthday, which involves taking Friday and Tuesday off (Monday is already a holiday for us), so its nice to feel like I’m almost caught up before the packing and sub planning start.

My husband was out of town for part of this past week, and it was also the book fair at my daughter’s school (which I had to staff every afternoon), but all in all things went pretty well. Obviously I had backup from my parents on Saturday, which was awesome, and they also helped at the end of week with taking my son to school (I had someone cover my first class one day to take him, but my parents came up the other two mornings). My inlaws have been in Texas since August, but now that my mom is retired my parents can help so much more. We are so, so lucky to have so much grandparent support.

And yes, my parents helped a lot, but I also managed a lot, and it was not that hard to manage it all because my kids are getting bigger and it really does get easier as they get bigger. And yes, bigger kids, bigger problems, but also significantly reduced day-to-day exhaustion. I wonder why the parents of bigger kids are so reticent to admit that it does get easier, they always seem to pull that big-kids-big-problems card, and while I understand where they are coming from, it doesn’t seem to tell the whole story and I wish they’d just admit that it does get easier.

So here I am admitting it: In my opinion it is much easier to parent an 8yo and an almost-5yo than it was to parent a 5yo and an almost 2yo. Way, way easier. I think it would have helped me get through those harder years if someone would have just said, oh yeah, that first bit is really shit but I promise, it gets better. Why did no one say that? I swear I was desperate for someone to say that to me and no one ever did. And I’ve had conversations with other parents who wholeheartedly agree and are also enjoying parenting a lot more now that their kids are older.

Maybe I’m just in that sweet spot, and in 3 years, when my daughter is a tween, I will think it sucks again. All I know is that right now, the days don’t feel as overwhelming, even when I’m parenting alone for a little while.

Which is good because everything else in the world feels overwhelming right now.

Speaking of overwhelming, I would like to overwhelming recommend you read Rebecca Solnit’s new book Call Them by Their True Names. I think you should read anything by Rebecca Solnit that you can get your hands on, but this new collection of essays is truly remarkable, and so, so necessary right now.

I’m at a professional training today. I signed up, and paid for it myself. I’ll get no credit for it, and while I’m attempting to get out of a few 1.5 hour professional development meetings at my school with this, it’s just me doing it because I know there is always more to learn to become a better teacher.

But being here, I’m faced with my professional self-perception, which has taken quite a beating in the past few years, and which isn’t very positive right now. I have a lot feelings about myself as a foreign language teacher, and most of them are negative.

It sucks to feel like you aren’t very good at what you do.

I don’t know. I’m in a dark hole this week. I know a lot of us are. Maybe I feel so shitty about myself professionally because there are so many people in this country trying to make me feel shitty about myself personally, just for being a woman. It’s hard to build yourself up when everywhere around you people are tearing you down.

I’m having a hard time writing the letter to the school board and superintendent defending my program. I just can’t seem to find the words, and the deeper I dig the more I question myself and my choices.

It’s just a hard place to be. I know I’ll get out of it. And who knows, maybe being here will help me get out of it. I hope it does. I need to feel positively about something right now, and my job would be a good place to get started.