something like a breakthrough

so, once upon a time, i trailed a kid around school for an hour and a half because i was worried about him. and every once in a while he would turn around and scream in my face "I HATE YOU! WHY ARE YOU FOLLOWING ME?!" and other variations of that sentence. and it hurt my feelings. i am a very sensitive person, and i have cried every day i've been back since january 7th. it's a personal record, i think. i'm not upset about me crying at all, its just how i get things out.

so this kid, he's mine. as in, he's from my fifth grade classroom and he is a pretty wonderful human being regardless. when i slipped and smacked the ice with the back of my head, he was the first one there saying "yo, that's my teacher, get your hands off her, help her sit up!" and i think sometime this month it clicked that i'm actually NOT leaving. i'm actually going to come and stay until june. until they all graduate and move onto the sixth grade at their respective middle schools. and that gives me mad legitimacy in his eyes. he told me about how last night at taekwondo afterschool some kid dislocated his thumb and his teacher popped it back in. then he leans in and whispers, "but don't tell anyone, cause i don't want them nagging on me." and i'm like, alright, this could be good. we're reading a book together and today he asked me if i wanted to take it home.

i love them all. they are all incredibly ridiculous, but they are so bright and wonderful when nobody is screaming at them. even the tiny skinny one that pulls on my hand all the time, regardless of how many times i've asked him not to pull on my sleeve anymore because i can't handle all that closeness. and the girls with the fifth grade attitude. sometimes it makes me want to laugh, but i can't because these are super serious things for them. super serious. and i try to keep it all in check and later i just smile reliving the day that i had in service.

taking it back to the fifth grade

we rode in and got to school at around 7:04am. i say around because with all the stops on the bus route, it could've been later, but that's the time the website said we would get there. shalon brought us dunkin donuts for breakfast. and there is literally a dunkin donuts on every corner of boston, but it was super nice to just be able to run out the door instead of being like, ok well i have to wake up to make oatmeal and wash the pot and wash the bowl i eat out of and the spoon.

school is crazy. its organized in pods but as of right now i have no clear system for navigating the pods. i feel like we are walking through a caterpillar's body or something. also some of the doors are push and some are pull and most of the ones that are pull i ran into and the push ones i tried to pull. go figure. we got to spend an hour with our classroom today.

the fifth grade is ridiculous. my entire class is mostly boys, a few girls -- all african american and then one little redheaded white boy. its weird to me because i'd never seen that dynamic before. in all the schools i went to it was the other way around. all white kids, a few black/brown kids. my class is out of control. they yell a lot and like to threaten each other with death. but i learned 3 names today, so that was good. benjamin talks a lot and his handwriting is very big for the 5th grade. daikari (i think thats how you spell it) is apparently usually really bad until someone comes to watch him (that's where i come in). and charles just needs encouragement. so i made some progress. after school we went into the community and it was pretty excellent. we just walked around and went to the Y and a neighborhood organization called project right! and then we went to lunch. after lunch to the neighborhood library.

but the most exciting part of today was that i finally made it to the DTA (department of transitional assistance) on mass ave. and i qualified for food stamps, which is amazing because i didn't have four paystubs or anything and i had to print my bank info from online. and not only that but even though we went 18 minutes before they closed, bradley and i still managed to get the food stamps debit cards and emergency assistance -- so my the money on my the EBT (food stamps debit) kicks in on saturday. its such a huge burden lifted off my shoulders.

first day at school
upromise. pinkies up.