Time for the biennial update!

I'm at the beginning of my second year in a wonderful charter school (which is hilarious if you scroll down 3 or 4 posts to my anti-charter screed).  It's been an amazing experience overall, and it has completely flipped my opinion about public vs. charter.  New stance: charters that do it well are the way to go.  Bad charters are just as bad as bad public school, and Lord knows there are lots of bad charters.  But I'm really fortunate to work for a very thoughtful, supportive, well-planned-out school.  It's in the South Bronx, but I'm not exaggerating when I say I would actually send my own child there.

The craziest thing about my school is definitely the kids' home lives.  Last year wasn't quite as intense, but this year most of my kids live in housing projects, and the ones who don't live in pretty terrible apartments and neighborhoods anyway.  I don't think I have a single two-parent family (although lots of moms with boyfriends).  Many of the parents are great, hard-working, and do everything they can to provide the best life possible for their kids.  But then many of them are just hot messes.  We do home visits at the start of the year, and a lot of my kids live in places I couldn't stand to be in for more than a few minutes.  That sounds really snobby, but I swear it's not a project thing.  A few of the kids in projects have lovely families and lovely homes (once you get out of the hallways, yikes!)  It's a chaos thing instead.  Some of the families have a lot of kids, no boundaries, and limited hygiene.  It's intense.  It makes me feel really anxious to be in homes like that, where there are multiple babies crying, and it's dark and dingy and scary.  Home visits are a pain in the ass, but also wonderful because it forces me to develop a degree of empathy and understanding I wouldn't otherwise have.

 I don't mean to be so judgmental.  I think it must be so overwhelming to face the challenges that poverty presents.  There are so many things I take for granted, like having enough money for food and transportation.  It just makes me so sad when things happen like a student has a horrible stomach ache because all she had for breakfast was soda, or one of my students never does her homework and her mom can't support her because she's illiterate.  It's pretty amazing that most of these kids come to school excited about learning.  It actually blows me away.  In a twisted way, maybe this will be an advantage later in life?  If they do make it to college and end up getting white collar jobs, all the adversity they faced as children will make everything feel so cushy later on!

My mom called today to tell me she has breast cancer.  Nothing in my life has ever mattered more than this matters.  It makes every thought I've ever had, every feeling I've ever felt, seem pale and empty.

 

Several of my students have trouble regulating their emotions, and sometimes they have unbelievable screaming tantrums.  Their feelings are so strong and beyond their control that they overpower them.  They scream--contrary to all logic and reason--until they're completely exhausted.  I feel like I'm having that kind of tantrum inside.  I'm shaking and I can't breathe and my feelings are totally out of my control.  But I can't scream, either.  Maybe that would feel better?  I don't know, is it possible to have an internal tantrum and be numb at the same time?  This isn't a great analogy.  

I'm so so scared.  I love my mom and I don't want to lose her and there is no scarier word in the English language than cancer.  

Life, you really suck sometimes.  In a dark way though, I have to appreciate your irony.  I had a good day at work, and when I went to the store to buy groceries, everything I wanted was on sale.  I guess I brought this on myself, because I was thinking about how this was really my day.  So there you go.  I am a devout pessimist: I staunchly believe that nothing can go well without paying for it later.  Maybe I've accrued too much happiness and good luck this year. 

It's crazy to think that everything else on Earth is happening in exactly the same way that it was happening an hour ago for everyone but me.  How can that be, when I feel like I'm breathing water all of a sudden?  

I never thought I'd say this...

I am a terrible blogger. I was only good about maintaining this when I was basically quarantined and had nothing else to do. This would be pretty useless as a guide for anyone going through ACL reconstructive surgery, given that I only update once every two months or so and my posts aren't even about my knee anymore. I always did this as a kid when I tried to keep penpals too. I'd write a lot at first and then gradually it would become less and less frequent, until I stopped writing all together. Oops. But this post will be back on topic!

I'm a couple of days shy of the ten month mark. Good lord, how did that happen? It's summer time, and I feel like I want to make the most of this summer to reclaim

some of what I lost last year. Last summer is this big black pit in my memory. I associate it with being hot, swollen, and uncomfortable because that's how I spent most of July and August. Not this year! This year I'm dreaming of lots of bike rides, beach trips, and outdoor concerts. (Although side note to River to River: your lineup is kind of weak this season!) I want to maximize time with friends, time outside, and time exercising/running around. Hikes! Tennis! Long walks around the city! All of these things are like gifts.

Here is the ten month knee status update:

I'm jogging on the treadmill regularly, but still just for short distances. The longest I've done so far (non-interval) has been 2.5 miles, but that's probably as much out of laziness as it is out of legitimate knee concern. I go three to four times a week now, and it feels stronger but still not 100%. It still gets a little swollen and sore every time I jog or go for a long walk, or even wear flat sandals for a day. I guess it's supposed to be 2 years until the new ACL is fully integrated into my body, so maybe that's how long I'll have to wait for these things to go away. Or maybe they never will? Maybe 28 was simply too old to completely come back from surgery with no ill effects. Everyone I talked to beforehand who told me "I don't even notice it now!" was like 16 when they had the surgery. I'm just not as resilient as I was in high school.

I'm still much, much, much slower than I was before surgery. I admit I haven't been actively trying to increase my speed, but it's a bit of a bummer that my all-out sprint now is like a fast jog was for me before. In my brain I'm still fast, but my body just won't cooperate. It's like that awful dream we all have of running but being stuck in place. Again, maybe this will improve with time (and, um, some concerted effort on my part. Oops.)

I'm playing kickball now with some friends from my old soccer team (and a bunch of other random people). Turns out kickball's not really a sport! I got soooooo annoyed with all the random girls on our team when they showed up for the first game in full make-up and huge hoop earrings, but I am actually the foolish one because kickball's pretty worthless. I mean, it's fun, but the only sweat I break is on the bike ride to the field. So this has not turned out

to be much of a test of my athletic prowess. The only thing it has done is make me crave soccer. Like, craaaaaaaaave. I have dreams about it! (And in my dreams I always play like a young Mia Hamm, of course.) I wake up from them and feel so sad. It's partly that I miss my soccer friends, but even more than that, I miss the competitive outlet. I've basically played soccer for the last 25 years of my life, give or take a few years. All this is to say that I've been seriously thinking about playing again. Is that stupid? I swore I was done after surgery, that I would do anything and everything to avoid ever going through anything like that again. But I think it's like having babies--if we stuck to our oaths forever, no one would ever have a second child! I just miss it so much. I miss the rush, I miss the excitement, I miss the team aspect, and I miss body-slamming dudes twice my size. I think I would be much more timid this time around, but even so, maybe I could reclaim some of that? I dunno. People do it though. It's not completely insane (is it?) People do play the same sport that burned them after something like this. And not just professional athletes. I don't know. I'm thinking about it.

Springtime blues

I've been feeling a little adrift lately. I'm still working that silly part-time job, and although it's tedious and boring, I'm really trying to shift my point of view to be more positive about it. After all, I was extremely fortunate to find something that I can do short-term with zero commitment and still have lots of time to work on school stuff. It's pretty ideal for this semester, even if it pays poorly. But I'm going to have to quit at the end of June because I'll be "student teaching" in a school (TBD) for the month of July and I won't have the free hours anymore.

So now I'm approaching graduation, and while that should be very exciting, lately I've been filled with more anxiety and dread than enthusiasm. The Department of Education is still waiting on the final verdict about funding for next year. Massive layoffs? Last-minute bailout from the state? Either way, it looks like this will be the third year in a row that the Board of Education won't be hiring any general education teachers. The good news is that no matter what, they won't be laying of special education teachers, and in fact they will probably be hiring in that area. But as a new teacher with no head teaching experience (on my resume, at least) and a glut of qualified teachers flooding the market (did I mention the total number of DOE schools to be shuttered next year is now at 27?) my special education prospects are not rosy.

I want a job in a public school. I've decided based on my own experience and that of everyone I know who has worked in a charter that charter life is not for me. For one, I don't believe in the movement. I think we should be focusing our energy and funding on improving public schools rather than dumping funds into risky speculation, especially given that charters are systems that can't be replicated outside of the isolated snow globes that are charter schools (see this article for a much more articulate explanation than I could provide about why that is). Also, I'm yet to hear of a charter school that does special education well, not to mention all the other issues surrounding quality of life and sustainability. Finally, I'm not interested in being part of an educational experiment anymore. As a first-year teacher, I think it's particularly important that I work for people who know what they're doing, and who will let me get my feet on the ground before imposing a lot of arbitrary and meaningless standards around minutiae that don't affect my classroom practice at all, which was very much my experience at my last job. I'm still suffering PTSD from that school. I still wake up from anxiety dreams with my heart racing and my mind in a panic on a regular basis. I think accepting that position and leaving my old job is the single greatest regret of my life so far--and that's coming from a girl with a lot of regrets. Anyway, it's made me picky at a time when maybe I can't afford to be picky.

I know it's early and I shouldn't be freaking out about this yet. But I can't help feeling devastated when I think about the fact that I'm finishing my Master's this summer and I may still end up back in the same sort of job that inspired me to get my Master's in the first place because I was so desperate to get out of it. Oh, the irony... I wonder if I'd make more as a secretary with a Master's degree, even if it was unrelated to the field? I hope so, given that I'm going to have a shitload of loans to pay off this time around. *Sigh*

I'm trying to come to terms with the fact that it is a very realistic possibility that I won't be working in a school next year. I'm clearly not at peace with it yet, since I feel like crying just typing those words. It's truly out of my power right now, given that I've sent out over 20 resumes, and the Board of Ed doesn't have a SINGLE JOB in elementary special education on their website right now. There's no sense in getting depressed about things I can't control. In the meantime, I'm going to focus on finishing my classes and my thesis. For that soon-to-be-irrelevant Master's degree. Right.

Capitalism and Unions

I've been thinking a lot about unions lately. Too much, in fact. I've been following what's going on in Wisconsin and Idaho and Iowa closely, and with no small amount of sadness. In part it's personal, since I'm a future teacher. But it's also something I've grown up believing in, long before I ever knew I wanted to be an educator. I remember reading The Jungle and The Grapes of Wrath in high school, and railing at the injustices of capitalism. I still believe very strongly that employers rarely have the best interest of their workers at heart, and I stand behind unions as a (admittedly imperfect) means of protecting the vast majority, those of us who will never stand at the top of a large corporation.

I recently watched an excellent American Experience episode about the Triangle Shirtwaist Fire (you can watch it here), and it highlighted how the victims' deaths altered the course of the labor movement in this country. Their deaths led to a surge of labor laws protecting workers' safety and quality of life, and we owe the success of both private and public sector unions in no small part to them.

I've been working for an online tutoring company for the last month, teaching English to people in Korea using a Skype-like voIp protocol. The company I'm working for is based out of the Philippines, and I had a feeling in my gut from the very beginning that they were shady because they don't have a real office in the States, it's next to impossible to get ahold of anyone, and they hired me after just a phone interview. But I needed the money, and it allowed me to work from home, so I figured I'd give it a chance. Fast forward a few weeks, and *surprise!* they shorted me on my first paychecks. It took me awhile to figure this out because I wasn't keeping as careful records as I should have, but I finally noticed today that I'd been underpaid for the last three weeks. I emailed my bosses in the States and also in the Philippines explaining the dates I had been underpaid for and how much I felt I was owed. My boss in the States--who is a very kind woman--called me back right away. She agreed that yes, I had been underpaid for training and she'd get on it right away. But she said that my pay had been docked in the following two weeks because "some of my calls had been more than 2 minutes over the time limit." This was the first time I'd ever heard of this policy, and it didn't sit well with me. Most of the tutoring sessions are 10 minutes long, and I often have as many as 9 or 10 back-to-back. It's inevitable that sometimes I go over, because if someone waits to the end to ask me a bunch of questions, I'm not about to hang up on them. If that were to happen in the beginning of a long stretch of calls, I'd be running behind for all the subsequent calls as well, completely unaware that while I was making call after call after call and completing the tutoring sessions, I was in fact NOT being paid for them since I was calling at 10:12 instead of at 10:10. That's questionable ethics, for sure. But it also didn't sit well with me because I had a strong suspicion it was illegal. I told my boss I was uncomfortable with this practice and needed some time to think about it, and we left it at that for today. She said she'd speak to the office in the Philippines and get back to me (which will be later tonight because of the time difference).

As soon as I was done with work, I started researching New York's labor laws. And OF COURSE it's illegal to dock someone's pay. You can't dock a worker's pay for ANY reason, even gross negligence, unless it's in their best interest (i.e., health insurance) and with written consent. So even if this clause were stipulated in my contract (which it's not), and I'd signed it, it would still be illegal because it's obviously not in my best interest. The law is very straight forward. I called the Labor Office just to make sure, and the woman assured me that it doesn't matter where they're based, if I'm working in New York they are violating the law.

So now I'm in this crappy position of wanting what I'm due, but also not wanting to lose the job. I'm pretty sure that's what will happen if I rock the boat. But I'm certainly not the kind of person who can swallow this, so of course I'm going to talk to her tomorrow. If worse comes to worse, I'll file a complaint with the labor bureau.

I wouldn't presume to compare my situation to sweatshop workers in the Gilded Age, but it does really illustrate for me the crappiness of human nature. This company makes so much money off of me, and yet they have the audacity to dock my wages even when I'm still completing my assignment! It's the nature of capitalism that the ones at the top will always want more, and they'll take as much as they can get away with, screw everyone else.

The worst part is, there's not much I can do. Even if (when) I get my money back, I probably won't have a job and they'll still be screwing everyone else who works for them. But at least I have the emails of all the other New York employees, so if/when they do fire me, I do plan on sending everyone else a link to the labor statute! (You can read the statute here and file a claim on this form, in case you're curious.)

5 months and counting

5-months post-surgery update:

I've been on a great workout streak since I quit my job! Emotionally it's been a little mixed, but at least I've been able to get in time at the gym almost every day.

I finally started my running program last week. Right now that means intervals of 1 to 2 minutes jogging, 4 minutes walking. Not too impressive, I know, but baby steps. The next step will be alternating 1/4 mile jogging and walking, and working up from there.

I also went back to yoga and pilates this week, which feels great. My body in general is very sore, but not my knee! I have to modify some of the poses because I can't comfortably kneel yet, but ironically the only pose that I absolutely can't do so far is child's pose. I wish I'd gone back to yoga a lot sooner. The flexibility, strength, and balance are all so good for my knee.

Otherwise, I don't think about my knee much. It doesn't bother me except when I sleep: I sleep on my side, so I have to keep a pillow between my knees. But I can do pretty much everything else normally at this point. And although I'm retired from soccer, I think I'm going to play kickball this spring. Nerdy, I know, but I'm excited!

Uncertainty

I'm graduating in July, assuming all goes according to plan. So do I stay or do I go?

Whenever I come home, I realize how much I miss my friends, most of whom are still on the west coast. I feel like I've made some good friends in New York, but no one comes close to the friends I have out here. There's something about people who've known you forever--it's like family almost. When I meet up with friends here, even with people I haven't seen for years, it feels so easy and normal. I really miss having close girl friends like that.

It's not just the social thing though--I miss the west coast in general. I feel like life is easier here. People don't work as hard or think as much about money, and every aspect of life isn't an utter ordeal out here. In New York, I feel like everything is so hard. Going to the grocery store, meeting up with friends, going hiking... All these normal things are so complicated in the city! And it was okay while I was still really excited about living there, but now that that's worn off, I'm just tired of putting forth so much effort and expense to do normal, simple things.

I should probably teach in New York for a year, I guess? I'm not really sure how that works. I'm not even sure where I'd go if I were to move. I think probably San Francisco. Seattle is too rainy, Portland is too small and too rainy, and I don't like LA. San Francisco seems like a good happy medium: still very much a big city, but also mellower and less expensive than New York, and with easy access to the outdoors. I have a few close friends down there too. Hmmm.

And then, maybe I'm looking at the west coast with rose-colored glasses. Whenever I'm home, all I do is sleep, eat, and hang out with friends. Of course it feels laid-back. So clearly this requires some more careful consideration...