supercheesegirl

so should i apply for this job? on the one hand, it sounds like a pretty sweet deal: six classes at $30,000. that's two less classes than elan has, and $5000 more (but in boston, which is more expensive). so that's the good thing. but then there's that thing where i really don't want to teach.

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Northeastern University. Full-Time Lecturer in Writing. The English Dept. of Northeastern University seeks to fill four benefits-eligible, full-time Lecturer positions. Lecturers teach six sections of required writing courses per year (three sections per semester), at a starting annual salary of $30,000. Applicants must have an MA in English or other advanced degree. Please send an initial application, which should consist of a letter of application, a c.v., & a brief (1-2 page) statement of teaching philosophy. For more information, see http://www.hrm.neu.edu/jobs.html.
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the other thing is that i'd have to make a c.v. and figure out what my teaching philosophy is. and the teaching philosophy is total bullshit anyway; you're just supposed to write what they want to hear.

but should i apply? please leave comments.

so today i taught class. it wasn't even a whole class that i had to teach, since there was a student presentation planned, but i was still all nervous. and then terry (the prof i'm teaching with) didn't come to class at all and just let me do it instead, which immediately made it both better and worse--better because there's less pressure since no one's watching me teach, and worse because what if they revolt? well, they didn't, although the group that was presenting today was a little weirded out that the prof didn't come to class. and i think i've figured out now what terry's up to: since i'm doing the current unit (today and next tuesday) and there's no class on thursday for conferences, he doesn't have to go to class for a week and a half. tricky tricky.

but anyway, teaching. the group did their presentation, and it was pretty hellishly boring. each one of them basically summed up the topic, and then discussed a few poems. they didn't plan a group activity or anything. so by the time they were finished, the class was fairly dead and the only one talking about anything was Jaimie, who always talks. i was glad i had planned a group activity, because it woke them up and they seemed to enjoy themselves and still sort of maybe learn something. and then there was only five minutes left of class so i let them go, since going always takes a while when they have stuff to hand in, which they always do. but anyway, i felt like it went well and i had things to say that were interesting and informative, even if it was just the correct pronunciation of "Roethke".

so next tuesday i'm in charge of workshop, which is not nearly as terrifying as actual teaching, which is not quite as terrifying as it was before. all in all, a good day! yay me.

dood. i'm phuckin' tired, and it's only 1:45 on a saturday afternoon.

first of all, jorn and i were up late last night. once we actually went to sleep, i slept really well. he knows how to take care of business, that man does. anyway, i couldn't sleep in because this morning i had to work 10-12 at the HLC. and no one was really "in charge" today, because thad is out of town for the weekend and debbie is still on her well-deserved vacation. tara was supposed to be on-call, and i don't know why no one called her, because we ended up being short two teachers. one of them had a death in the family, but the other was just not there--maybe she wasn't really scheduled and thad made a mistake, or maybe she just didn't come? we don't know. but we were short two teachers, so that when i got there, i got to work with two kids when i should've just been working with one. randy my little sweetheart was there, and so was wendi, who i also love, AND little lily, and there should have been one teacher for each kid, but instead there was just katie and i. so katie worked with little randy, and i tried working with both wendi and lily at the same time. this did not work out too well.

lily's only six, and she can't read well enough to be expected to work on her own for any length of time. wendi is eight, so she should be able to work on her own for at least a few minutes at a time, but she'll drift away if you don't stay on her, plus she's a chatterbox, plus she's always in some sort of pain from some newly-healed scrape. so wendi needed attention too. katie helped when randy was working on the computer, and anthony was on group so he helped with lily's stuff when the group was being quiet, and so it pretty much worked out. i mostly worked with wendi while katie and anthony helped lily along. most of the time i love working with wendi, but today she was getting on my nerves because i couldn't give her all my attention like usual, and she just was not being helpful. wendi whined about her vocab sentences SO MUCH--even after i had given her like six example sentences for the word "glance", she still insisted she couldn't think of anything. so i was like, FINE, close your book and let's do math, because she had dragged her feet for like 20 minutes on just the definitions and the first sentence already, and then she was all upset because i was being short with her. argh, wendi. so she didn't finish her program, and lily finished most of hers but not her vocab sentences either. there's just no way i could have had them both writing vocab sentences at once, because i think it's an inherent part of children that they just hate writing vocab sentences and must be prodded repeatedly to do it.

after work, i went to the Bilo (again) to pick up some gummi worms and swedish fish and blue jello. i've decided my dessert item for the picnic tomorrow will be aquarium jello, if i can figure out at what point to drop the fish in. Bilo also had little gummi sharks, so i was excited. i'm going to make a first draft with peach jello (b/c jorn likes that kind too) and drop in worms periodically to see when the best worm-dropping time is (after 20 minutes in the fridge? half an hour? etc). and then tomorrow morning hopefully i'll make a double of the blue jello and drop in fish and worms (for eels) and sharks. and i'm going to use a glass bowl, so people can see the fish in the aquarium. i'm just a little concerned because if i put too many things in, then the jello won't harden, but if i don't put enough in then each person at the party won't be able to have their own gummi fish/worm/shark. sigh. not like anyone's going to care; they're all better cooks anyway. at least i know jorn and i and rhett and xina will have some jello.

i made it all the way to the end of zelda: ocarina of time, but i don't feel like beating ganon and finishing the game. i did all the fun stuff already, and it takes a while to beat ganon, since you have to beat him twice (long story) and then watch the ending sequence. now i want to reinstall all the kings quest games and play them again, because they're super fun. jorn doesn't like the earlier ones, but i think they're the best. must resist the urge, though--i have dishes to do and jello to make and poems to write.

yum. gummi worms are good.

okay, so yesterday i had to work at the HLC twice--in the morning 9-11, and in the evening 5-7. in the morning i had twin #2 of the new boys, both of whom are very friendly and nice (i had twin #1 yesterday). i think twin #2 has a crush on me now. but they're 12 years old, which means that when i explain something, they say, "ok, that makes sense," or when i ask them to do something, they say "sure!" That's all i phucking ask--people who can be reasoned with. little kids do not reason; they whine.

which brings me to my evening.

i go in at 5pm, and i'm on the schedule with the shoe boy, whom i've mentioned before (see the links). and Shoe Boy is not in the mood to get anything done tonight. he likes to color things, and insists on picking up three markers when all he needs is one. so when he's not looking, i steal marker #2 and give it to another teacher to hide (all the teachers know how Shoe Boy gets) and i steal marker #3 and hide it in my pocket. which just pisses him off.

we read a little bit in his first book, but when we're ready to move on, another kid is using the second book on our list. with any other child, this would not be a problem--we'd just move on to book #3 and grab book #2 from the other kid when he's done with it--but Shoe Boy needs to do everything in the exact right order. he doesn't want to work in book #3, so he's insisting that book #2 is actually there on the shelf, and he's *arguing* with me about it when book #2 is clearly NOT THERE. so francine, another teacher, leans over and says to him, "we've got that book, and we'll give it to you when we're done." and boy, does that make him mad.

so on to book #3. he doesn't want to read. i ask him to read out loud, which he does first in a mumble, then in a baby voice i can't understand. then he starts reading but makes up the details as he goes, like saying that the dentist dresses up like a big tooth for halloween when the book doesn't say anything like that. so i say, should we go talk to dan and tell him you don't want to read? and he's like, no, i hate you. so i get dan, and dan patiently talks to Shoe Boy, who says he'll work. dan leaves the room and Shoe Boy turns evil again. i say , if you don't want to read out loud then you can read quietly, which he pretends to do but then marks down all the wrong answers, so i know he's not reading it at all. and i say that his answers are wrong, because i'm capable of reading the passage over his shoulder and knowing what the answer is, but he refuses to believe me that he's wrong until i go get the answer book and check his answers with it. the little pig. and he acts surprised that they're wrong.

so i ask him to read again, and he starts mimicking every word i say, repeating it back to me in this little whiny voice. PLEASE TAKE NOTE: if there's anything i cannot deal with, it's this. i have always HATED it when people do this to me, because it shows an absolute lack of respect for the other person, and besides which, it's really phucking rude. i'm thinking that if he keeps doing this, i will no longer be able to control my actions, and i don't want to get fired. keep in my that i've only been with Shoe Boy for half an hour, and we're already to this point. so i go to dan, and i say that it would probably be in Shoe Boy's best interest if another teacher can work with him for the rest of his time tonight, if dan can work that out for me. and dan says, i'll do my best.

five minutes later, i'm looking at the three 13-15 year old boys in the group, and dorothy is with Shoe Boy. and let me tell you, dorothy is my new phucking hero. she's got him sitting in his seat, reading out loud, doing his work. if Shoe Boy finishes his whole reading program, he gets to work on the computer, which he rarely gets to do because he's a little ass. but an hour later, i see Shoe Boy on the computer with dorothy right next to him, so he must've done his whole program. i was absolutely amazed. and i got along really well with the teenage boys in group, so i was happy with how the evening turned out.

i did feel kind of bad even asking to be switched from this kid, let alone sticking poor dorothy with him (she's only been at the HLC for a few weeks now). but there was no way he was going to work for me. he hates me, and it's not like we've got to be best friends or anything--i don't care if he hates me, but he's got to do his work while he's hating me, and he wasn't. and that doesn't do anyone any good. so i think i did the right thing. there's some kids that i get along great with, like little randy (who hugged me last week), and little wendi (this black girl who just cracks me right up), and i'm fine with all the older kids, but this Shoe Boy just isn't good for me. hopefully i won't get stuck with him again.

so today was a good day for the most part. i woke up at jorn's house, went to the gym, played with my sims for a while this morning, showered, went to the office and did busywork for ELT, came home, and then went to the HLC for my evening hours. and i was working with the nice little boy. he's only five, so he's working on writing letters and recognizing simple words, stuff like that. and we got along great for the first 45 minutes or so, and then he got a little cranky and tired, and i guess i didn't see it and pushed at him too much, and he started crying and refused to work anymore today. which is not, in itself, a big deal--it happens sometimes, especially with the little kids, but as long as they're happy when they leave (and usually they are, just because they're leaving), then the parents don't hear about it.

but my problem is that this happens all the time *with me*. and i'm starting to wonder if it's the little kids just being little kids, or if it's me. this is the fourth kid that i've made cry. and i've never seen him crying when he was working with anyone else. that doesn't mean he never has, of course, just that i've never seen it. but i really kind of dread working with the little kids now, because they get upset and then they don't learn anything, and it does me no good because i get all stressed out. i've never before thought of myself as a person who makes children cry.

so that kind of killed my evening, and as i was pondering this on my way home, i nearly hit this woman on her bike. completely my fault, but i stopped in plenty of time. but she starts yelling obscenities at me. does this make me feel guilty for almost hitting her? no, it makes me almost wish i had hit her. bitch. although if it was me, i would've felt justified in yelling obscenities too. there were, i swear, six people on bikes just on the one street as i drove home. and all of them were in the street. now, i realize you get a better ride if you're in the street, and it's annoying to ride on the sidewalk, but honestly. and this one couple! i pass them as i'm approaching a red light. i stop at the red light. they come up past me on their bikes and without even slowing down to look, they ride right through the light. straight across the street. not even slowing down. granted, it was a one-way street, so they only had to look one way to see if there was traffic coming, but it's a three-lane one-way street. and aren't people on bikes supposed to follow the normal traffic laws anyway? couldn't they get a citation for that? they certainly should.

and then i get home, and i'm feeling all sorry for myself because i'm an asshole who makes little kids cry and then tries to kill bitches on bikes, and there's a package for me sitting in the stairwell. and it's from sarah b, and it contains all these weird fun crazy clothes that i'm guessing she got at the garment district or some other thrift store. two jackets, two shirts, and a pair of pants, all crammed in this little box. just because she got a good deal and was thinking of me. awww. i miss my roomie.

do days like this happen to other people? sometimes i feel like no one mood-swings like i do.

yeah, so i shaved my legs today. first time since february (i think). it's so nice and warm out, and i wanted to wear a short skirt, and i don't have the confidence at this point to wear shorts or a short skirt with furry legs. so they are shaven. only took like 40 minutes, too. and they are very soft and nice.

i should be working on poetry now, but i had a difficult time at work tonight--really hyper kid. wouldn't stop playing with his shoes, of all things. i had to take his shoes away from him. i'm confident, though, that he at least learned one thing tonight--how to spell "shoes". :) so that wiped me out. i hate it when that happens--i plan to do something and it gets messed up. and i'm such a sucker, i can't just tell dan i want fewer hours permanently. grr, me.

and then we went to tex & shirley's for two dollar all-you-can-eat pancakes. and it was good.

has lj been horrible to anyone else lately? it's impossible to get it to load in the evenings at all.