carwash calamity and bad words and jokes

i think i need to sleep more than 5 hours a night. i got gas yesterday and then drove into the carwash near my apartment. the directions said to turn the side view mirrors inward and to put the car antenna down. i turned my side view mirrors in, and then wasn't really thinking about my antenna being up, even though my radio was on. total brain fart. i drove home and parked in my garage and while i was getting teacher junk out of my car, i noticed my antenna was bent in a 90 degree angle. crap. and in trying to bend it back, the metal snapped! arg. it was hanging by the cord inside. luckily i had just gone to the 99 cent depot in culver city and had packaging tape in the car (i should probably get some electrical tape until i get it fixed) and taped it up and tried to give it some stability so it wouldn't go flying off while i drive around. it looks so GHETTO.

after lunch today, a couple of the kids had issues they needed to tell me. AR told me that AM hit the playground ball that was in his hands while they were waiting in line and he was really upset by it. and AM said that while they were in line, AR said a bad word to her. i heard the story about the ball, and then made AM apologize to AR. then i asked AR if he said a bad word. he said no, AM said he did...back and forth a couple of times. i asked AR again, if he said a bad word, and he said, "i didn't say a bad word; i said f--k." my response: "..." "so AR, that is a bad word, a very bad word. it is a word we never use at school because it is inappropriate and rude. it is not the kind, polite, and respectful language we are supposed to use with one another. i'll call your mom after school to discuss this." omg.

yesterday, one of the sweetest boys in my class told me "knock knock" jokes at recess and lunch and said he had more jokes. i told him to save it for after school because i just don't have time to hear all the things they want to share during teaching time. so after school, he started telling me the joke very innocently, and it turned out to be a totally racist joke involving the "n" word as a sound effect. how do you start telling a 6/7 year old why that joke is so not ok to ever repeat because it's racist? i didn't have a chance to really get into my spiel because his dad came. i explained to dad and dad was totally sorry and explained that RG hangs out in south LA with his abuela on the weekends and gets exposed to the african-american/latino racial tension that hasn't fully moved up to k-town. or at least, it's not as intense...yet. sweet kid. broke my heart that his world is a little more tainted with exposure to those kinds of jokes. i'm pretty sure he felt terrible. sigh.

my dad e-mails!

a few weeks ago, i sent my dad an e-mail just for kicks because i set up an email account for him and he was starting to learn how to use a computer at a class with other chinese folks. just today, he sent this back to me:

"The computer class is very good. I am still learning."

i am impressed with the pops.

first day of school

posts have been few and far between. with the start of a new school year, it seemed like a good time to try to blog more regularly.

this morning, i woke up early and felt panicky - almost like i was a first year teacher again. i switched from fourth grade to second grade and so it sort of does feel like starting all over again. i had a brief moment this morning where i kind of wanted to throw up - from nerves, not from being sick while in tokyo.

so, i met my new class today - 18 second graders and 1 more coming tomorrow for a grand total of 19...so far. it can pretty much change day to day for the next few weeks. the kids short and cute. they talk a lot and have to go to the bathroom...A LOT. and while they are cute, i'm oddly afraid of them. i have no idea what to expect from them and what they're supposed to be able to do. for example, i gave them a math pre-test today, and the first question had 8 discs and the kids just had to bubble in the number 8 to show how many discs were pictured. uh...what? i guess i'm tripping out because i'm used to teaching linear algebra, long division, integers, and multi-digit subtraction/addition/multiplication. so questions like "how many ducks are pictured?" (7, in case you're wondering) are throwing me off. i kept going, "why don't they know 11-6?! is it because we only have 10 fingers so the 11 throws them off?" i bet the kid with 11 fingers is thinking, "this is so easy!" just kidding, none of the kids have 11 fingers, i don't think.

i'm going to work up to just treating second graders just like i treated fourth graders. hopefully, they won't start crying. that would be bad.

1 day down, 179 days to go...