Recent Events

I've been getting a lot of heat lately for not blogging. Well, I've been busy.

yep, busy. Like, trying to find a new job, new apartment, moving, oh and dealing with two flat tires, a misaligned hub cap and a broken car window.

Just moved to San Francisco. The house hunt was a bit dramatic and more difficult than I expected. I am excited to finally have roommates but a little weary of my neighborhood now.

First night in the apartment and I wake up to a broken car window, a stolen GPS, and fast food garbage thrown in the car...? really? Did thieves just use my car as their personal garbage can? Of course, Honda says that my alarm didn't go off because broken car windows don't set off the alarm. WTF is the use of the damn alarm then?! They told me the only way the alarm will go off is if someone opens the door while the car is locked....what? So, someone can break my window and stick their hand in and unlock the door then open the door from the inside...and steal my car. No alarm going off. Should just leave my car unlocked and windows down saying "please take me. please."

I had to test out my alarm. So, I had my co worker lock me in my car and I tried to open the door from the inside. Of course, no alarm goes off. Nothing happens. Honda reps tell me the timer has to set. Can take up to 30 minutes. I just don't understand this procedure.

My co workers gave me a wonderful array of not so helpful comments while I drove to work on a rainy day with no window...bawling...

"What doesn't kill you makes you stronger." seriously? i'm going to vomit.

"You are pretty unlucky." No shit sherlock.

"My car has been broken into like 8 times since I lived in the city." Um thanks that is very reassuring.

"This just isn't your year." This isn't my decade...

So, I paid some outrageous amount that I can't repost here because I will cry again to fix the glass. And am now completely paranoid this will happen again. My co worker took off my berkeley license plate covers, my parking permit that says City of Berkeley on it, made me clean out EVERYTHING in my car (and trunk), and told me to "look tough" when I park on my street.

I think I might get drunk this weekend and go smash some windows and steal some shit. Anyone with me?

Sick

I'm sick. I mean, anyone that knows me knows I am usually ill with something or another. This time its the green goo. Coming out of my eyes, mouth, and nose. Waiting for a call from the doctor for one of those phone appointments Kaiser offers. I can get prescriptions over the phone! What if I was lying about my symptoms? Or I just wanted antibiotics to sell to someone? It seems shady but at this moment I NEED DRUGS. Vegas next weekend and if I am sick for that I'll be really really mad.

Watching Criminal Minds all day while the bf is gone. I want to change careers and be in the FBI. Doable?

The Saga

I need to document the past year of my life before I forget it.

Let's start with Teach For America Institute 2010. Working non stop + getting no sleep = quickly developing cold. Turned into high fever and a fainting spell which landed me in the emergency room of Long Beach Memorial. A spinal tap, numerous vomit spells, 3 days of missed institute, and blood clot procedure to fix the hole in my spine, and over $20,000 in hospital bills later I find myself as a lead pre school teacher at an unmentionable Head Start program from hell.

After realizing I was trained to work with 5 year olds in an academic pre-kindergarten setting, I find myself potty training 2 year olds in a day care that refuses to set high expectations or goals for their students. I brought rigor and an academic focus to classroom set in behavior problems, managerial issues, and staff inadequacies.

I have a co teacher who hates me because I am white, a manager who doesn't know what to do with me, and TFA staff who continuously expects me to push the barrier with this organization. A month into my job, a student of mine is shot and killed. In the two months after that incident, which was traumatizing enough to make any teacher quit and never come back, my classroom experienced 3 more shootings and a crazed parent come into the center with a knife threatening a teacher.

I forget what happened in between these next incidents but I specifically remember a child eating a live fish, being bitten through my genes by a 2 year old with Hepatitis B, spending copious amounts of hours in the bathroom cleaning pee, shit, and vomit, looking for a replacement co teacher for four months, being consistently out of legal teacher to child ratios, and hating every minute of my life.

Although, there was Wen Hao, my most precious student who is a total and complete genius. He kept me semi sane through the past 10 months.

Then there was a few more shootings involving my students, physical threats made by a parent, a lice outbreak, a curriculum revamp, a total classroom makeover, me finally getting the hang of not teaching but rather supervising a day care, and then...there was the latest of horrors: BLEACH IN THE EYE. Its exactly how it sounds. Bleach in my eye = chemical burns.

And now, this despicable organization I work for has decided to discontinue their partnership with TFA for next year and I will be getting a new placement for the 2011-2012 academic year. Thank you God.

I think what pains me the most is the injustice that has been done to the children in this situation. I love the majority of my students, despite my hatred of their age. I have seen an immense amount of progress in my classroom and my students going to Kindergarten (yes there are a few) are 100% ready to pursue their academic career in public schools. My younger students, who make up the majority of my students, have also made huge gains socially and academically, despite the difficulties of our center. I have created a positive learning environment and successfully impacted lives of children, but the system that I work within will never acknowledge this fact. They will continue to implement incompetent modes of teaching that will further the achievement gap in low income communities. Unfortunately for the children, I have done all I can to impact their lives and now I will be moving on to other schools that will allow me to teach children and truly make an impact for the better.

A friend and my life in text

Jess: I'll give you 2 dollars if you can tell me what this pic is of (phone pic of brandon's hand holding my foot on the couch)
Anonymous friend: Brandon giving you a foot massage?
Jess: Hahah nope. We were clasping hand to foot while watching tv. New mode of cuddling.
Anonymous: I haven't cuddled in over a week. Can I have a pity dollar?
Jess: Sure, you figured out it was my foot. That was half the bet....


2 days later...

Jess: Crying cuz I cant see, Brandon left, and I still have to work at Wu Yee for 2.5 more months. So now I am going to get In n Out.
Anonymous: I'm crying too. Finishing a bag of popcorn. In bed.
Jess: What's wrong with us, we are never happy.
Anonymous: TEACHING.
Jess: Maybe this is a hint...what else r we gonna do with our lives?
Anonymous: The only idea ive heard so far is prostitution.
Anonymous: Just upgraded to beer in bed.

The eye

As I sit in my apartment getting ready for bed, I realize it is the first time I will have slept here in over 5 months. Why am I paying rent? My cat has a $900 a month studio. Spoiled brat.

The latest in the Wu Yee saga has left me with a bleach saturated eye. The defective bottle that has been broken and replaced four separate times fell apart while I was cleaning a table before lunch while being observed by an ECERS evaluator. Bleach spilled all over my face, eye, and legs. My right eye is blurry and I have spots in my line of vision. I can only afford one day off so back to work tomorrow. Hopefully, I will be able to drive to work without driving off the bridge from blindness...although sometimes I think about doing it so I won't have to go to work anymore.

2.5 more months.

One of these days I will blog the last 10 months of the Wu Yee saga so my children will understand how much I hate children...oh wait...that's not it. I need to document these things so the world can see that God does in fact hate me.

This weekend will be epic. I'm going to hit the beach, brunch, and San Jose. Sweet.

Let's watch more Bones...

Hmph

I wish I was a giraffe. Anyone that knows me understands this about me. I love their serene nature. I love their magnificent beauty. I love how kind they are and also how freaky. I mean seriously...they are ridiculous. I love how they have sex. The male mounts the female from behind but because of their height it is the most awkward sex I've ever seen....

I wish I could be a giraffe. Then I wouldn't be doing this.