My own private Rapa Nui

School is strangely quiet now. We are finishing grades, completing paperwork, cleaning rooms and in some small way, preparing for the fall. I'm essentially done today, except for turning in my keys and attending graduation on Friday. Other years, I would probably still be trying to finish everything, but this year, for some reason, I finished early and fairly painlessly. I'm enjoying the quiet and using it to plan for changes to my senior English class next year. And I'm reading the New York Times. A lot. To find articles to use next year because my students lost all my books when I was out. And drinking lots of coffee. Often.

In the midst of my googling a comparison of Fender and Gibson guitars, I was startled to see a student rush into my room. Rush is not exactly the right word. Surge is probably more like it. I've had him for two years now, and he always enters my room the same way: Right shoulder first, head down a little, surging sideways and surprisingly quickly over the threshold and straight to the bank of windows at the other side of the room. As if forcing himself through invisible combatants. As if the end of the room is the only thing that will slow his momentum.

When he reached the windows, a wave hitting a rocky shoreline and rolling back out to sea, he surged gently back to my place, back toward the door, to finally hover behind me, just out of my peripheral vision.

Douglas: So you're all done!

Me: Yup. I just finished cleaning my desk.

Douglas (pacing behind me over my right shoulder): Looks good!

Me: Thanks.

Douglas: Which head would you like?

Me: Um, excuse me?

Douglas (presenting me with two pretty much life-size photocopied cut-outs of his head, neck and a tiny bit of t-shirt collar): Which one do you like?

Me: Um, I like them both, but may I have this one?

Douglas: Sure! Let me just trim it a little bit.

Me: No, that's okay. It looks fine! Thanks!

Douglas: Now you can hang me on your wall! You'll have to find a place!

Me (as I clip the head to my bulletin to my left and directly behind my left shoulder):How about if I put you here for now? I'll rearrange it in the fall.

Douglas: That looks good. Now I'll always be watching and you'll remember me.

Me (as he surges back out the door, ostensibly to deliver the remaining "head" to a colleague):Of course I'll remember you . . .

They shoot horses, don't they? or Two horses walk into a bar . . .

Dan: Lemme tell you a joke.

Me: Oh lord.

Dan: It's a good one. Two horses went into a barn . . .

Me (interrupting): Bar or barn?

Kevin: I'm leaving if this joke has the word "neigh" in it . . .

Dan: Barn. So the one horse says, "Did you hear that George is in the hospital?" The other horse says, "So, how's he doing?" The first horse says, "Oh, he's stable."

Me (to Kevin): I think I would have preferred hearing the word "neigh."

Kevin: Oh yeah.

Dan: Hey! I almost got low blood sugar last night from thinking that up!

Me: What?

Dan: I had to get up in the middle of the night to write that one down!

Me: Wait. You wrote that one yourself?

Dan: Yeah.

Me: Hmmm. I hate to say it, but I think I have to give you a tiny teeny weeny increase of props for writing it yourself.

Kevin: No, I don't think you need to do that.

Me: Kevin, believe me, it hurts to say that, but I do.

Dan: Hey, thanks, Huth!

Me: Dan, that doesn't mean it's a good joke or anything.

Dan: Yeah, but if it had been really bad, it would have gotten the "Huth eye roll."

You know what I blame this on the breakdown of? Society.

During a discussion of a New York Times article on curbing truancy with electronic monitoring systems, with an eye toward creating a persuasive argument, and as the more vocal members of class voice their opinions about how the chronically truant adversely affect the lives of those who diligently attend school--

Joe: I mean, those kinds of kids, the ones who are truant, they're not going to change just because they're wearing a GPS.

Jess: They might. If I had to wear one, I'd change.

Me: It is true that attendance does not necessarily equate academic success . . . I'm thinking that while Justin certainly is here in body, he's so busy texting right now that he has no clue what we're discussing . . .

(Justin sheepishly looks up and pretends to put his phone away.)

Roger: If the tracking device was really big and obvious, then it might make a difference. Like if it were around their necks . . .

Me (interrupting): What?

Roger: . . . with spikes to stick into their necks . . .

Me (interrupting again): What??

Joe: Naw, you don't need spikes. You just need to make them stand out, so everyone would know they were truancy problems.

(Tired groans from the rest of the class)

Me: So, you're suggesting a way to make it obvious that this group of kids is a problem, right?

Joe: Right.

Me (tilting head, scrunching mouth thoughtfully): So . . . we need a way to identify this particular group as a problem . . . (thinking some more) . . . I think the neck-thing would be difficult to manage . . . What if we tried something else . . . something simpler . . .

Adele (under her breath): Oh, lord . . .

Alex (under his breath): Wait for it . . .

Me: How about making all the truancy problems wear something to make them stand out somehow? We could make them wear, I dunno, a brightly-colored star or something on their clothes . . .

(Adele, Hosna, Alex, et. al. variously snorting and attempting to suppress laughter)

Me: . . . something so we could all know that these kids are different from us and that we, those who regularly attend school, are better.

(Exaggerated sighs and heavy eye-rolling from the truancy lynch posse.)

Me: Ah, yes. That's why I get the big bucks. And just remember why we're reading all these articles now . . .

Class: . . . because all your books disappeared when you were out . . .

Oh boy! Sleep! That's when I'm a Viking!

Last night I had one of those dreams where I thought I had a great idea for a blog post. In my dream, I wrote about some hilarious thing that happened in one of my classes, and I remember thinking, "God, this is pretty darn funny! Erin will read it to Anna, and they'll both laugh!" Then I thought, "But this is a dream. Did this really happen? Will I remember it tomorrow?"

Today, I find myself with no memory of the post's content, and no sense of whether it really was based on reality. Oh well. Duh.

I spent today listening intently to my classes, hoping for writing fodder, feebly grasping at moments of levity, incongruity and insight, all of which slipped from me as I answered the intercom, or gathered back work, or had to leave my room to make way for another teacher.

I finally gave up.

Because I am a person firmly grounded in reality I will offer today's statistics in lieu of my fantasy post.

6: Number of Saturdays until I visit Nora in Venice.

5: The average number of seniors absent from each class today.

4: The number of phone calls I made (in between classes) trying to arrange to pay my son's tuition for the fall.

3: The number of seniors who told me they don't think they'll graduate this June because they still haven't passed a Regents exam they should have passed in 10th grade.

2: The number of students who showed up to mod 8 whom I hadn't seen in a week and a half.

2: The number of former students who came back to visit me with excited reports about their first year in college.

2: The number of beers I drank on my deck when I got home from school.

1: The number of seniors who told me they're pregnant.

1: The number of seniors who told me they're about ready to drop out of school even though graduation is on June 27th.

1: The number of former students' obituaries I found in today's paper.

1: The number of boxes of already-opened granola bars I received because they "tasted like bark, and I know you like to eat healthy."

All in all, it was a good day. Or at least it was a normal day.