Musing/wanking

On June 22, 2015 By Luther M. SilerIn idiocy5 Comments

Feel free to skip this one. I mostly wrote it already anyway.

So my problem in life right now is that I really really need to find a new job but I am also a lazy human and I have a job, and searching for jobs is hard so I don’t wanna. I’ve caught myself thinking several times lately that being back in the classroom next year wouldn’t be so bad. I can allow myself to think things like this only so long as I’m able to pretend that “teaching” actually involves helping kids to know things, which is the smallest and frankly one of the least important parts of the job.

Have a story: Today I bought coffee on my way to work. I drank the coffee when I arrived at work. Approximately half an hour later, I had to poop, so I did.

That story is going to be impossible if I’m teaching next year, because teaching is a job where grown adults with Master’s degrees can’t go to the bathroom when they need to.

Here’s a story: Today someone else was sick and it didn’t affect how I did my job at all.

Only that story’s pretty close to impossible too, because the district’s policy for substitute teachers is so stupid and destructive that no one wants to sub anymore (and it’s a terrible job even under better conditions; we all know this) and so frequently if your partner teacher is sick you just have to shrug and have 65 kids in your room all day. And if you kill any of them it’s your fault.

I cannot and I will not.

Here’s a story: I had a Sunday.

I’ll never have a Sunday again if I go back to teaching. Sunday’s Grading Day.

I’m no more than three or four days away from being done with work until August or so. I need the break if for no better reason than Starlight is pushing on my skullbones trying to get out and I need a couple of weeks to get it started. And I gotta take this “new job” shit seriously and start looking. Because this ish ain’t gonna drop in my lap.

Sigh.

Okay that’s quite enough for today

On December 16, 2014 By Luther M. SilerIn Teaching6 Comments

Most of the way through the, oh, 300-page or so report I have to have finished by Friday for the IDOE.

Had to listen to a grandmother admit– in tears– that she doesn’t think she wants her own grandchildren any longer. Their parents have already abandoned them and the kids are so screwed up that she has no idea what to do with them any more.

And then got home and had to deal with some shit on Facebook so goddamn vile that I don’t even want to talk about it. I have had enough for today. Thinking about actually taking the rest of the week off at this point but I probably won’t even make it through tonight.

Hey, remember this?

On November 11, 2014November 10, 2014 By Luther M. SilerIn Teaching5 Comments

You may recall a certain kvetch about teacher pay from back in August, where I bemoaned the ability of a licensed teacher to make as much as a fast-food manager. Well, we went to Taco Bell for dinner last night, for the first time in a while, and guess what? They’re still hiring, and I wasn’t lying:

At least I know where to go if I want something competitive with my current salary.

WARNING: whiny

On November 3, 2014 By Luther M. SilerIn Teaching3 Comments

calm-whining-toddler-800X800 Do you think this kid’s parents know he’s a meme now? Do you think they’re upset about it, or do they think it’s awesome? And do you think he’s old enough by now to have an opinion on it?

The following things are all true, if vaguely contradictory:

I really miss my old school;
I have no real desire to return to teaching there;
I have no particular desire to return to teaching at all at the moment;
I nearly changed something somewhere where I referred to myself as a “teacher” and then didn’t do it because the thought made me really sad.

I like my job in a concrete sense– in that, when I am at work, I am generally happy and I enjoy the people I work with and the work itself is in my wheelhouse and not generally unpleasant to perform. I don’t like that I’ve been there for several months now and I still don’t know what to say when people ask me what I do for a living, and I’m still prone to simply lying and saying I’m a teacher. I don’t want to teach, but I really don’t want to not be a teacher. Which is… kinda weird, y’know?

It’s going to be really interesting to see what four days in Nashville edutopia later this week is going to do for my feelings about the future. If this can’t get my head back on straight, I’m not sure what can. We’ll see how it goes.

In which I provide too much information

On September 24, 2014 By Luther M. SilerIn idiocy10 Comments

I would like to complain about an aspect of my job, if you don’t mind.

I have certain issues with public bathrooms. For example, I do not understand how anyone can talk to anyone else while… uh… performing in a stall. It is literally the creepiest thing ever when people try to talk to me when I’m in a stall– particularly if they begin the conversation by making it clear that they don’t actually know who it is in there. This is the one way in which I will declare as a broad statement that I don’t understand women; my understanding is that it’s a social hall in there and y’all go to the bathroom in packs. Sometimes there are couches in your bathrooms? Is this true? I don’t get it. It’s weird and y’all should stop being weird.

My dislike of communication in the bathroom extends to basically creating any sounds of any kind, honestly. My preferred pooing atmosphere, if you will, is in a completely empty (other than the stall, which should be lockable even though there’s only one) and entirely soundproofed room. I don’t mind people theoretically being able to hear me pee, but damn if my nethers don’t clamp up involuntarily upon someone else entering the bathroom. I have to force myself to continue taking care of business if I know someone else is in there, even if that person is in another stall and actively making the noises that I’m trying not to make.

Yes, I know. I’m messed up. I admit it.

There are two adult bathrooms at my new place of business. One of them is a one-seater and is effectively a private men’s room for the office. That bathroom has two problems: 1) it is directly outside the principal’s office and 2) I am one of only three men who might ever use it, and one of the other two is frequently not in the office, so not only is there a theoretical chance that my boss might hear me in there but if I power bomb the place everyone is going to know it was me. This cannot stand.

Allow me to continue. The picture attached to this post is of the two stalls in the other staff men’s room in my building. Take a look at it for a moment and see if you can see the problem.

Yes? No?

Okay, let’s be more specific: look at how tall the doors are, and then look at how tall the partition between the stalls is.

I am five feet ten inches tall. That puts me at just about exactly the average height for a white American male my age. When I am standing up, which I will be doing when, uh, completing the process of the… uh… process, my entire head is above that partition. And if there happens to be another man in the stall next to me, and that man finishes at the same time I do, we can look at each other and make eye contact.

There is nothing more horrifying in the entire universe, except for the possibility of an exceptionally tall person (they’d need about six to eight inches on me, I estimate) walking into that stall, because that person would be tall enough to see me just by looking down. And that would cause horror enough to kill me on the spot and force me to haunt the bathroom for the rest of eternity.

There is nowhere safe to poo in this building. I need to either massively adjust my diet or get a new job.

An unfortunate observation

On August 12, 2014 By Luther M. SilerIn Work1 Comment

Spent all day surrounded by teachers. I’m not sure whether I can use the word “other” in that sentence anymore. It hit me today that I could, if I wanted, use the word sabbatical to describe this year, since at least in theory I plan on returning to the classroom next year, so I think my ten-second “So what do you do?” job description is going to be to continue to describe myself as a middle school math teacher and then admit that I’m on sabbatical if pressed for further detail.

But that’s not the point. The observation is this: it was rather amazing to me just how exhausted everyone already looks. Now, granted, for a lot of folks this was their first day back, and we did start awfully early in the morning, but I know the difference between exhausted and tired and I’ve chosen that word on purpose. It’s not a thing I’ve noticed at pre-school events in previous years. Just about every adult in that room looked fucking exhausted already and we haven’t even started.

Not a good sign. And I’ll tell you what else: not for a single second did I regret my decision to not teach this year. That will come, I think– we’ll see what happens when the kids get back– but it sure as hell ain’t here yet.

On the new job

On August 8, 2014 By Luther M. SilerIn Teaching3 Comments

Here is what I can tell you about my new job:

* I work at a school.
* I am not teaching or a principal.
* My job is primarily administrative but I will be working with teachers a lot.
* The job is currently for a year.
And
* I have received a substantial raise.

Unfortunately, as easy as it would have been for a determined investigator to find my last school, if I release much more detail it is almost trivially easy. Now, maintaining some anonymity is less important since I’m not teaching, but I’d still prefer it. So this is all I can say. Job description basically seems to be “fireman” so far. I’ve been busy as hell.

I needed a break from the classroom, and more money is nice. We’ll see what I decide to do after the year is up.

In which this is really actually true

On June 11, 2014June 11, 2014 By Luther M. SilerIn Teaching2 Comments

I’m, like, fifty followers away from the big 3K. REPOST ABUNDANTLY.

I received a thank you note today– from a parent of one of my students, mind you– that started with the sentence “Thank you for being a cynical, sarcastic, grumpy asshole.” And, like, it meant thank you, and not weird reverse-psychology I’m using thank you to mean I hate you nonsense.

What can I say; some of them get me.

Today was Field Day; it went just fine, as these things tend to do, except it had rather less Field than I might have liked due to torrential rains at the beginning of the day (when all of the outdoor stuff would have been set up) and at the end of the day as well. In between, though, it was beautiful outside. Unlike last year, as you’ve seen in the post below this one, I managed to remember to get a picture of the last bus as it pulled away from the building. So, yay: achievement unlocked. I also found out today that there’s at least one other school wanting a phone interview. And another actual interview Friday. So double-yay.

Goals for this summer:

Get BA 8, currently untitled, written. I’m about 3600 words in.
Get Skylights online. This will require talking to my artist tomorrow. And, uh, the revisions. Damn revisions!
Finish the bathroom. Soon.
Get my comic books categorized and, hopefully, sold.
Go through the four enormous crates of vintage 1980s toys that my mother unleashed on me last weekend and figure out what to do with them. Yes, that’s a big enough task that it counts as a summer goal.
Oh, and, uh, get a new job.

I still technically have one more day at work; the teacher record day is tomorrow, but literally everything is done and if I wanted to I could check out of the building five minutes after walking into it tomorrow. I’m not going to, but I could.

For right now, though? Bed. Early. I didn’t sleep well at all last night– not, like, end-of-year related, I just couldn’t sleep– but I intend to make up for it tonight.

(Random late addition: the lack of an apostrophe in the title of this YouTube video is annoying me enough that I may actually change the video. Something is wrong with me.)