I’ve not written lately for at least two reasons. One—I’m out of practice writing consistently. Two—I’ve been substitute teaching for elementary and middle school children.
Today I worked with high school people. I love them so. They long to be anywhere but school. They have a vague distaste for substitute teachers, which can be overcome by promising things or by giving snappy retorts. I love them.
Middle school students, they also have a distaste for substitute teachers, but it’s more a taste for blood, rather than a distaste. These are the ages when nothing is their fault and everyone else is doing something wrong and it’s entirely up to them to inform me of their classmates’ wrongdoing.
They’re annoying.
Elementary school children, well, they aren’t recognizably human, I mean they are, but they aren’t the same as the others. They have endless energy and an endless need to be paid attention to. They’re small and, in kindergarten, everything is made small to suit them.
So what does that have to do with not writing? Well! I’ve been coming home, doing whatever it is that I do, and falling asleep at 7:30 or 8. When I wake up in the morning, I still feel groggy and cranky. It seems that they’ve taken my energy and used it as their own,
Little bastards.
But they’re really cute! I’d like to treat them like wild animals. I can watch them from afar, their hi-jinx and fights. I can watch as they burst into tears for small reasons. And I won’t have to intervene, because they’re wild animals. Very wild.
Posted by dotty at November 1, 2005 10:17 PM