Too Cool for School

My vices

Some people take to drinking when they've had a hard day. I just eat the candy that I bought to reward my students.

I want to apologize for not speaking much "life" lately. When I wrote my teaching mission statement, one of my statements was, "I will speak life and not death, I will try to build up and not tear down." And of course, nobody's perfect. But I've got to try to hold to that. I told my sister that I didn't think anybody could see Jesus in me at school. Sometimes I'm just so disappointed that I forget to be thankful. This weekend, boring though it may be, has given me a lot of time to just think about who I am and what I started out trying to accomplish. It's a good thing that I'm directing again, because sometimes I feel like I lose theatre (my first love) in all this mess of "official school duties." You want me to tell you about some of the good stuff? The other day a student who had been especially difficult to deal with came to my room after school, just to hang out. He hasn't showed up to my class much in the past 6 weeks, because it's his goal to drop out of school. Other teachers say he's been trying to drop out since the 7th grade. I'm not sure if it means a lot to say he came by just to hang out, but the truth is, I've written him up four times and used up all of my energy trying to get him to do his work. The fact that he hasn't slashed my tires (he threatened to last week) is a sure sign that maybe he does care about school. Well, we'll see.
And have I told you? My students made me a beautiful collage using a poster from the show and real ticket stubs. They also used a scrap of the wallpaper from the set we built. It's one of the coolest gifts I've ever gotten.
And another happy ending! Remember my favorite jeans0--the ones covered in brown paint? Well, I bought some dark brown clothing dye and they came out so well, you can't even tell the paint from the rest of the jeans. My students gave me their seal of approval when they told me they now looked like "Emo Jeans". (Emo, I learned, is short for "emotional", and it's a rocker-thing.)

There will be more good stuff, and I'll try to report it. Hold me accountable, guys. I want to speak life, not death.

But expect me to vent when I'm covered in brown paint.

Have a wonderful weekend.

"I tell you the truth, whoever hears my word and believes in him who sent me has eternal life and will not be condemned; he has crossed over from death to life."
John 5:24

posted by Heather at 10/22/2005