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This is a continuation of my journal from my 2001-2002 school year.  Please read the previous posts to give this entry context. 

Speak of Crying

Today, apparently, was my day to give to others.  First, two colleagues and I had yet one more meeting about what the marquee will call our department chair’s goodbye bash.”  We joke that we could quit our jobs and become events coordinators.  In truth, it has been very time-consuming, but there are no other people in the department with whom I’d rather be planning an event.  We are all organized and dependable. 

I’d no sooner gone to my room than Soledad, my former student, came to see me.  She was despondent.  She’s had a boyfriend these last three months, someone who’d convinced her that he cared for her, someone for whom she’d let her studies slide a bit.  Then, somehow, don’t ask me how because I don’t own a cell phone (I’m not sure I’ve ever used one), but somehow her boyfriend accidentally dialed her, and Soledad became privy to a conversation between him and another girl that clearly indicated he was two-timing.

I was relieved that Soledad wasn’t telling me she was pregnant.  My advice was for her to dump the guy.  We talked for some time about young guys and how unready most of them are to commit.  “You’re the prize,” I reminded her. 

We hadn’t even finished our conversation when my student teacher walked in.  He’d been offered a job at Aptos. This was no surprise, since I’d helped him prepare for his interview and then had played phone tag for two days as the vice-principal tried to reach me for follow up.  But my student teacher doesn’t know whether to accept this position or to try for a writing center position at his old high school in Texas.

Later Mark Yonemura brought in poems, one by himself and one by his sister, for feedback. I didn’t get many career research papers read. 

We have our rooms to pack, too.  It’s official.  I’m moving back to the English wing, but to a different room.  I have mixed feelings.  I’d been in room 59 for many years, but being in B17 highlighted for me how depressing it was to be in a fenced-in corner of the campus with concrete poured to the door.  I’ve been assigned to a room on the Beach Street side of campus, across from Martinelli’s.  The door faces the exterior of the campus and there’s grass outside the room.  On the other hand, my little ghetto corner was quiet.  Room 64 will be a lot noisier with Beach Street traffic and the clank of the bottles at Martinelli’s.  The room also faces north, so I think of it as dark.  The Health Academy was going to take the new room created by the move of the book room, but now they’re not.  I should look at it and see if it looks better.  It’s right around the corner from the one I’ve been assigned, facing the quad part of the campus. 

Tuesday, May 28^th 

My student teacher still hasn’t quite decided whether to take the job at Aptos, or not.  “Now if you were going to Aptos,” he said, as though if I were going, then the decision would be easy.  That really touched my heart.

Wednesday, May 29^th

Things are finally starting to fall into place for our department chair’s Bye-bye Bash.  I paid the woman at the Cocoanut Grove last night.  I’ve bought the disposable cameras, and the album for guests to sign.  I’ve found someone to pick up the flowers now that Patti can’t, and I’ve settled the last money with the department chair.  My co-planner has the speakers’ list arranged.  Friday we’ll all work on distributing parking stickers.  Whew!

I’m busy stripping the walls of B17.  Fortunately, my curriculum is easy because the students have to take their posttest on the Gate MacGinitie reading test. There are so many bookends to this year.  The pretests and posttests.  The bombing of the World Trade Center and the last bit of debris removal.  Moving to B17 and packing to move back.