A Poem of Address

Dear Homework,
I don't like you and I never, ever will.
But I get to deal with you for the rest
of my life.
I get to give you.
I'll get to grade you.
Oh homework, whose brilliant idea were you?
I always tell my students that they should do their homework,
But right now I just don't really feel like doing mine.
So I am writing you a Poem of Address
Because I learned about those in school last week and
I think they're funny.

So how does it feel when the dog eats you?
How do you feel when you get forgotten at home?
How does it feel to be completely ignored
And left in a backpack all night long?

How do you feel when someone
makes you stay up all night while they work on you?
That's really inconsiderate.
I know you would like to go to bed and so would I.
But homework,
Right now I am procrastinating by
Writing you a Poem of Address.

Alright homework. Let's do it!

Falling Out of my Chair in Front of my Students

Omph!

I just missed the seat in the auditorium and I'm going down. Luckily catch myself on the armrests. Now three of my students are laughing hysterically. I'm trying not to laugh. I do have a huge goofy grin on my face.

But I can't laugh because these kids were talking and being disrespectful of the musical director and that's why I tried to sit between them in the first place.

I can not laugh.

It's really hard to do.


After School
I am relaying the story of "How I Fell in Music Today" to my roommate. Suddenly I realize that the seats in the auditorium do not spring up like they do at the movies. If they are put down, they stay down.

Which means that kid didn't just move his leg. He put the seat up!

I find this even more funny. And really disrespectful. But mostly funny.

I am finally the teacher that got cleverly tricked by her students.

Oh I'm Visiting too! Um, I live here.

When I first moved to New York City, it was very important to me that I didn't give anyone the impression that I was a tourist.

So I walked really, really fast.

And I felt like a total bad ass about walking really, really fast.

I also had a special policy for celebrity sightings: pretend like I don't care. That meant not taking a picture with Edward Burns (drool), keeping my mouth shut as Ben freaking Stiller walked past me on the street and treating Ryan Gosling like every cute boy I've met since high school: mistaken eye contact, look of terror and retreat.

I have adapted. I walk much slower--at a normal pace. Last summer I even tried to avoid sweating by walking really,really slowly, but it didn't work.

Now, when I want to take pictures or I need to ask for direction I pretend that I am a tourist and hope that I don't give people the impression that I do live here.

Two days after New Years Eve, I'm lost in the West Village. It's Saturday morning and I'm meeting my girlfriends for my favorite meal of the week, brunch. And West 10th Street isn't where I thought it would be.

So I start looking for someone who looks like he or she lives in the area, but wouldn't be all pretentious and bitchy like the guys that work in the neighborhood boutiques and definitely do not live there, but desperately want to.

I reject a few people and then pick the guy with the headphones. He totally lives here. He looks friendly.

Me: "Hey, can you tell me where W. 10th is?"

He whips out a map. He totally does not live here and he's going to give me directions and I do live here and I should know where I'm going, but I don't! Stupid streets with names!

Guy: I'm visiting too!

Sable laughs.

Me: I live here....

Guy looks bewildered. Maybe he thinks I'm lying. Maybe he thinks I'm really stupid. Maybe he thinks that he is super cool and I am super drool.

But he is just nice and I get to enjoy my eggs served by a pretentious, bitchy server.

Advice from First Graders

Franklin: Ms. Bridget, you should paint your nails like my mom. She's a model. My dad is a wrestler.
Me: Oh yeah? What color?
Franklin: Um, yellow and blue and....(he ran off)

One day I attempt to paint my nails and it is a disaster. I show Frankline

Franklin: You need to get one of those, um...
Me: Manicure?
Franklin: Yeah, you need a manicure.



Me: Ralik, since I'm a student teacher...what kind of advice can you give me. What do you want your teacher to be like?
Ralik ponders for a minute and looks up at the ceiling.
Ralik: A princess.




Me: Jamil, what should I get my dad for Christmas? I never know what to get him.
Big smile. Huge eyes.
Jamil: A wrestling toy!!!

How I Got My 3rd Grade Class in Trouble

Who are these Jonas Brothers that were on "So You Think You Can Dance?" last night? And can they really play the guitar? And why didn't that one kid shave his pubescent mustache? That can't be cute....

I have a lot to learn about today's "kid culture." This summer, all my third grade girls were decked out Miley Cyrus T-shirts, Miley Cyrus school bags. Everyday at least one girl was wearing one and many days several of them were. I've never heard one of her songs. But I've watched about two minutes of "Hannah Montana." Way over the top. I couldn't handle it.

My roommate informed me as we watched the Jonas Brothers performance that one of them date Miley. And then she asked me how I didn't know this. Aren't I suppose to know this? Yeah, geeze yeah I am. Kid research comes with the job. I have my work cut out for me. Luckily, K. taught me the Soulja Boy dance this summer. And not only do I really need to see "High School Musical 2," I actually really want to.

I missed out on NKOTB as a kid. I either didn't have that much interest in Bop or I wasn't allowed to read it. I didn't get celebrity boy crazy until I was in high school—Leonardo DiCaprio, *N SYNC (drool).

But I understand crushes because I was a boy-crazy little girl with a record three boyfriends in preschool: my neighbor Nicky, my classmate James (poor kid always had to hold my hand) and the olda boy, kindergartener Lee. I really doubt my feelings were reciprocated, but in preschool I was only concerned about who I liked.

Liking boys. I get that.

So one day my cooperating teacher steps out of the classroom and one of my third girls pulls out her Jonas Brothers folder.

"Ew, you like the Jonas Brothers?" says one of the boys.

"Yeah," she says as she roles her eyes in a duh-of-course-I-do-he-is-HOTT kind of way. All the other girls are squealing.

"So you all like the Jonas Brothers?" I ask.

"Yessssss" Squeal. Giggle. Squeal. Squeal.

I know nothing about these guys so I bring it back to a surefire super hottie for third grade girls because I have seen "High School Musical" and I did enjoy it.

"What about Zac Efron?"

Eruption of Squeals. It is loud. I am laughing. Boytalk with little girls is absolutely hilarious.

Boytalk is apparently not appropriate in school.

A student teacher from across the hall comes into our room. "Can you guys keep it down, our class is trying to take a test?"

Opps.

My cooperating teacher walks about into the room.

"What is Ms. C's class doing?!?!?!"

Double opps.

Eyebrow Eyebrow

Madison Square Park in New York City. Sunny summers days bring out loads of lunch breakers, kids and their nannies, college students, dog park goers, hipsters, people who are dressed so slummy that I assume they don’t work 9-to-5 jobs and I wonder what they do for a living. Are they actors, artists, bartenders, bike messengers, freeloaders, who knows?

It also attracts me. Everyday as long as the temperature is above 50 degrees. If it seems warm in January, I’ll still freeze, but I try to eat there. Today I was wearing my really big sunglasses that allow me shameless people watching privileges. There’s no way anyone could see where I was looking.

Today there’s also an older dude with long curly black hair. The top part is gelled. He’s pretty tan and wearing high tops. He reminds me of Southern Virginia white trash, but he clearly looks like metro New York Italian, and yet if it weren’t for that gelled hair, I’d imagine him biking on a boardwalk in California.

I wouldn’t have even noticed this guy if he wasn’t in my line of vision as I sat on the ground. He gave me the eyebrows.

The eyebrows!!

The “Hey baby,” Eyebrow, Eyebrow Move. I like to use this goofball move on my friends. But this seemed like a legitimate pick up.

I dropped my head, ate my pasta and thought about Full House’s Michelle Tanner doing the eyebrows. That was cute.

But is there an Irish Bar?

I have a major problem.

I am moving to the Upper West Side for a ridiculously cheap (Manhattan-style cheap) rent of $680.

One wall is slanted. The closest is in an inconvenient place. But it’s $680 and the living room and kitchen are basically the size of my entire apartment now. $680. In Manhattan. It’s like the jackpot. (I would say with monopoly money, but we are talking Manhattan where my teeny apartment that has become too small for myself alone—because my roommate lives with her b/f—so therefore, real money and we’ll go with the dollar, but not the Euro because it’s a slanted wall and not perfect.)

But there is one problem.

“Is there an Irish bar your friends can go to?” my boyfriend asked me.

“Uh?”

Baker Street: Irish lady yelled a me for not drinking, always thought I should hang out there, but I never do.

No idea what he’s talking about.

“You know, where you’re friends can go late night?”

Oooooh.

Yes. Well, no. I don’t know yet. I should have checked the neighborhood before I said yes!

Can I really move into a place that doesn’t have an Irish bar with in walking distance that my drunk college friends and the drunk Freakazoids (aka Freakazoid , Bazarama and Aggie-but not Aggie because she has only been there for car bombs on New Years Eve with a certain St. LouA-natic—yeah I know that spelling is wrong) can go to in their pajamas?

I have already said yes. But oh my, I hope there is one, and I’m frightened there’s not!