'smile and nod'

at 3.30pm, -a time i'm actually usually out of work for the day- yesterday, my supervisors came into my classroom and asked me to attend a day-long conference for "reading, math, and special leadership." they seemed kind of desperate and i'm not sure if they didn't want to go themselves or what, but i like mixing it up, so here i am. it's kind of like having a get-out-of-school-free card for the day, so i'm down. i'd like to flatter myself and think my bosses picked me as a 'special leader,' but i really just think they wanted somebody - any actual body - to be here from our school.

so it's "open market" in the nyc schools as of march 20. that means a list of vacancies for the fall has been posted online, and for displaced teachers like myself, the opportunity is there for us to start shopping ourselves around to schools we like. when i accepted the position at my current school knowing it was closing in june, i figured that my the spring i would have a strong grasp on the system and would know where i wanted to apply, but, yeah…not so much.

there's a big part of me that wonders why i'm not just following my heart back to VA where todd is. it is so tempting. i hate the long distance and parcelling out our time together on weekends. but i'm not done with new york yet. i mean, half the time i still feel like i just got here. so i'm going ahead and trying to ferret out a school where i can find some of the many, many things i have missed at school this year. you know, like colleagues even close to my age group, a creative and stimulating environment, supervisors who have a clue…maybe that's too much to ask? i know i'd like to escape the pigeon-holed role i currently play as the zany young white girl teacher with all the weird ideas. i'd prefer not to be a stereotype.

printouts of power point presentations do not bode well for a daylong conference. i have already found a typo. this does not encourage me, either. at least it's not your instead of you're. that's the worst.

the woman to my left keeps answering the keynote speaker's rhetorical questions in a conspiratorial whisper aimed in my direction. i have said it once and i must say it again: i am a freak magnet.

i never want to be the woman who leaves a strong fuschia imprint of my lips on an innocent white coffee mug.

yesterday, april 4, it snowed - hard - for about two and a half hours and left the city blanketed in about 3 inches of the fluffy white stuff. however, by the time i left school three hours later, it was 52 degrees and brilliantly, blindingly sunny.

i wish i had made the time to post about "V for vendetta" right after todd and i went to see it a couple weeks ago. the movie blew my fucking mind. i left the theater wanting to fight, to soar, to do something big and make a fucking difference. it sparked an inner fire i fear sometimes just smolders. it made me look at my life and wonder wtf i am doing. it made me question the effect of the passion i possess and speculate about what i have really done with my life so far.

i want to be a superhero. or at least, just super.