I’m Amanda. I’ve got wide eyes, a smart mouth, and a MetroCard. And I’m not afraid to use them.
I used to joke with a friend in high school that some boys appeared to shop at Hoodlums R Us. In Hicktown, USA, wearing boxer-exposing jeans with their knee-chapping crotches was baaaaad. And doing it with an insolent smirk? Totally gangsta. Never mind that the same kid was in Ag class and showed pigs for 4-H. He was from da school of da hard knocks, yo. (Not merely Odem High School).
Should I share
the all of me,
the truth pouring
out like river water,
murky and unfiltered?
If I reveal my impurities,
promise you will still
try to soak in me,
what I am,
what you thought I was,
my solution
that is wrong and right.
wallet
It’s a rather well-made and convincing Louis Vuitton knockoff, but the coin pouch part of it has torn. Sometimes pennies slip out of it, which convinces me that I will lose tens of dollars if I don’t get a new wallet soon.
Me: I love listening to ironic music selections on my ipod while walking to school [from the subway] in the morning.
I had a wonderful lesson with my Special Ed class today. We’ve been working on building their vocabularies and using context clues. We reviewed some words from previous weeks, but then the kids got challenged with two completely unfamiliar words - “amiable” and “redundant.” They figured out what the words meant and were so into the challenge that I could barely write the words on the board, because they kept trying to sound them out and read them before I was done writing them.
So…I have a survey I’d like all readers to participate in.
Chen, my housemate/fellow America’s Next Top Model commercial break refrigerator sprinter thinks it’s weird that Kathy, the primary renter/candle maker of the house insists that the lid of the toilet be put down when it’s not being used. I have always been a toilet lid putter-downer. Chen insists I am abnormal.
Today is report card conference day at school, so students got out of school at 11. Parents had been given bulletins asking them to visit their children’s teachers from either 12-3 or 6-8:30. Parents and guardians must pick up the report cards and sign a bunch of paperwork, etc., etc. It gives teachers a chance to do something they’ve wanted to do for weeks on end - put a face to the blame. Blame as in, “So YOU’RE responsible for the creation and continued life of this creature?!”
The night that the RAs had their last staff dinner for the 2005 school year, the RA on-call for the South Tower found an abandoned Siamese kitten in the halls. Well, maybe not a kitten, because it appeared to be very pregnant. The tiny, starving cat was friendly and trusting, despite being blind in one eye. Lore, the South Tower HC, told the RA on-call to call the Humane Society or Animal Rescue Center or some organization that never showed up.
What I vow every time I go to the grocery store:
When I go home for Christmas, I’m bringing back as many boxes of cereal as I can fit into my luggage.
Q: What’s been going on at I.S. 666 lately?
A: Well…I should probably start with the most recent incidents. Bobby’s ipod was stolen by one of his students. He has his suspects, but unfortunately, no one’s confessing or snitching. A mentally retarded girl went on a rampage in Karen’s special ed class and 911 had to be called. Two of my former students, neither a prize pupil, had a big girl fight. I didn’t see it, but I know that one girl pushed the other against a window so hard that it broke. Weaves were coming out, faces were getting scratched, it was on! Both were suspended and are now back in school. In one of the classes I teach on Friday, there was another girl fight that I had to break up. I barely pulled on one girl’s arm and she stopped fighting. She didn’t want to fight, but felt she had to save face by giving in to the prodding. The girl who instigated the fight between the two girls took video footage of it on her cellphone and kicked one of the girls in the ribs while she was down. It was disgusting and brutal. All NYC public school teachers have a new contract and will get an 11% pay increase this year. It should be more, but I’ll take what I can get. Mr. Jones, one of the teachers that has always been very kind and helpful to me, decided to resign on December 2. I.S. 666 has already lost three first-year teachers this school year.
