When Good Showers go Bad

There is no feeling in the world like the one you feel after a nice shower.  If you can survive standing that long in slippery porcelain while being pelted with hot water, sustain the train of thought necessary to wash yourself, and keep your mouth closed so as to avoid drowning, then after a shower you're usually going to feel pretty good.  That is, as long as the shower was a good one.  But what about when the shower is less than fabulous?  Once you actually motivate yourself to get off the couch, turn off the TV, strip down, and submerge yourself, you're just left there to hope for the best.  Hope that the shower gods did not throw a dart at your picture today, because if they do.... you're going down.


I'm not going to talk about when the hot water runs out or when soap gets in your eyes.  Those are obvious problems, and I didn't become a creative writing major* because I'm good at writing about the obvious.  No, I'm going to talk about the top five shower disasters that you may not have ever considered happening to you.  But you will.  OH YES.  YOU WILL...

1.  You do not have all the necessary supplies for this shower

So there you are, trying not to drown in the infinite rain coming from six inches above your head.  You've put the shampoo in and you're reaching for the face wash, but it's not in its usual spot.  Where is it?  Your mind goes to theft.  Who would steal your face wash?  What kind of dirty-faced robber would overlook the big-screen TV and the inordinately high number of computers and go straight for the face wash?  It's not even expensive face wash.  You had expensive face wash once.  It was from England, and it was the greatest product ever.  But it's gone, and you have grocery store face wash and someone has stolen it.  Then you remember:  It wasn't stolen.  You left it at the sink this morning when you washed your face before work. Why did you do that?!  Now what are you going to do?  You run through your options: Don't wash your face.  Save it for tomorrow morning; how dirty can it get between now and then?  If your sink isn't far away, you can try to reach for it.  But if any amount of acrobatics are involved, forget it.  You're going to slip and fall, and they will find you unconscious and naked in your own blood.  Even if you survive, the shame will be enough to make you wish you didn't.

2. Your conditioner bottle does not understand that less is more

You've made it about halfway through the shower with no major mishaps.  It is now time to start conditioning your precious locks, and you reach for the bottle.  You squeeze, but apparently there was a bubble or a clog or a something that caused the bottle to lose its freaking mind and vomit conditioning fluid all over your outstretched palm.  Your hand will never become un-slippery, because washing off soap like this only makes the soap more soapy.  You run your hand through the water, but now the rest of the conditioner is wet and you can't put wet conditioner in your hair because you remember that one time someone told you that conditioner slides out of your hair if it is too wet.  In addition, this much conditioner is never going to wash out of your hair all the way, and even though you did take a shower today, tomorrow your hair will be a grease ball and people will wonder if you spend your days rolling in oil and if your shower is boarded up like a condemned house.  To make matters worse, now that half of your conditioner has just committed suicide, you are going to have to replace the product sooner than you had originally planned.  What food item are you going to cut out that week to make room for extraneous conditioner-purchasing?  Hmm?

3.  You did not possess the proper amount of foresight to plan for after the shower

So you survived this far.  You didn't drown, you didn't slip and die.  Maybe you even remembered to bring all of the right supplies for this shower.  You're feeling pretty good; that cleansed, productive feeling is just moments away.  You turn off the water, step out onto the rug so your delicate little toes do not have to touch the cold tile.  You reach for your towel, so you can start blotting off the water while you're still here, surrounded by warmth and steam.  But there is no towel.  And you're pretty sure it wasn't stolen, because it wasn't an expensive towel and also you remember meaning to put it back in the bathroom after your last shower experience -- but then you also remember thinking I'll just check facebook and watch one episode of Regular Show, and now there is no towel, and the heat is rapidly leaving your body and escaping the room through the crack under the door and you can't exactly dry off with the bath mat... So what are your options?  Run wet and naked through the house until you locate the towel?  Do you have hardwood floors?  Because if the answer to that is yes, then a flowchart of this dilemma would travel from "hardwood floors" to "instant death."  You are not going to survive a marathon sprint for the towel.  What remotely soft, fabriclike thing do you have at your disposal that can sop up the water?  You close your eyes.  This isn't happening.  There must be something else I can do.  There isn't.  You reach for the toilet paper.  You shake like a dog, hoping to get some of the water off before you wrap yourself in double-ply.  You exit the bathroom a terrifying, dripping mummy.  There is nothing cleansing about this; this shower was a complete failure.

4. Water is not the only thing falling from the sky

You remembered your towel.  You are not going to have to exit the bathroom as a mummy, not after last time.  You even remembered all of your shower products.  But nothing could prepare you for the horror you are about to experience.  You bask in the water for a minute, close your eyes and imagine that you are in some magic tropical location where the waterfalls are 100 degrees and a handsome native is waiting for you with a towel and a margarita.  Today is going to be a good day.  Then, you hear a small splash.  You look down.  Suddenly, you are not alone.  A thumbprint of black has appeared from out of the heavens and is now floating around in the water, fighting against the current of the drain.  There is nowhere to run.  You are trapped here, in this porcelain tomb, with a cockroach, and there is no way out.  You can't step on it; even in the shower, surrounded by soapy water, you are not about to get cockroach guts on your feet.  Your best bet is to hope it loses the battle with the current and gives up struggling, then you can step out of its way as it floats down the drain to its doom.  You better hope it didn't see your face, or it is almost definitely going to tell the other roaches in the sewer what you look like and they will come for you.  It might not be this shower.  It might not even be this year.  But they are waiting for you, and they will make you pay for letting their comrade get carried away while you just stood there pointing and screaming.

5.  Paranoia sets in and everything is scary now

It's been a good shower so far.  No vermin, no conditioner vomit, and you have a clear visual on your towel.  Things are going your way.  In fact, everything is so perfect... it almost feels too perfect.  There are no cockroaches...that you can see.  What about the ones that you can't see?  The ones that are hiding, just out of sight waiting for your most vulnerable moment before they inundate you with their disgusting, hard-shell bodies.  Soon you will become so covered with roaches that all you will be able to hear will be the clicking of their exoskeletons as they collide with one another and with your flailing body parts.  Home boy was serious when he said he'd get revenge on you.  And if this isn't the day you are cockroached to death, there are still an infinite number of other threats to your shower safety.  Is the door closed?  Is it locked?  What if you can't get it unlocked because someone has broken in and is filling your house with gas before lighting a match and watching you burn through the peephole?  What if you open the door and find someone standing in the hallway with a knife and the severed head of your pet or your loved one?  Maybe you should keep the door open, just in case.  It might help you to see your threats before they have your cornered.  Sure you'll be naked,wet, and soapy, and not at all about to challenge a serial killer to a duel, but at least you have a plan.  You are not going to die here, like in Psycho and almost every other horror movie.  You try to concentrate on your shower, you try not to get any soap in your eyes.  You cannot afford to have your vision compromised.  But in the back of your head, you hear creepy rhymes from commercials for horror movies.  That Daniel Radcliffe movie, for instance.  Why did you memorize that poem?  Since when was Harry Potter allowed to fight creepy vengeful spirits with a soundtrack from some demented preschooler's rhyme book?  And what about that noise from The Grudge?  Why is that noise allowed to exist?  Now you can't get it out of your head and you look up at the ceiling, just to make sure nothing is creeping along to suck your soul away.  Nothing is.  Not right now at least.  You look again.  You've accounted for any risks that may lurk outside of the bathtub, but what about at your feet?  You think of that meth awareness commercial, where the girl encounters her future meth addict self in the shower.  What if you are unknowingly destined to a future of meth, and you are about to meet meth-addict you, curled in a fetal position and bleeding from a busy day of hallucinatory scab-picking?  This shower can't end soon enough.  Who needs a second rinse; you'll probably just blot off any of the remaining soap with your towel.  Turn the water off and Get.  Out.  Now.  Before your chances of surviving this shower shrink any more than they already have.

Showers are wonderful things.  But they can also be very dangerous and unpredictable.  Awareness is the first step, but this is a problem that has no easy solution.  Shower roaches are the number one cause of shower-related slip-deaths.  Probably.  Nobody was able to ask them what they saw before slipping and dying because they were dead already, and the roach probably scurried down the drain to plot with his roach buddies about who their next victim would be.  And maybe you've never considered shower serial killers or encountering a horrifying version of your future self, but you will now.  I don't think Douglas Adams knew how prolific he really was when he said that, at all times, you must know where your towel is.  


*Read: English major with concentration in creative writing, but whatever.

She said..."No comment."

A weird thing happened today.  We were working on vocabulary, and for reasons I can't recall, somebody mentioned Jet Lee (or is it Li?).  I thought it would be a nice time to give a useless bit of trivia, so I told the group about how Jet died as a result of what may or may not be a curse.  Having brought sacred Eastern secrets of martial arts to the Western world, many believe he was cursed and that was why he died.  Maybe it was Bruce Lee who brought the curse upon his family.  Either way, the conversation that followed went like this.

Student: A curse?
Me: Well, that's what they say, yes.
Student: But there's no such thing as curses, because God makes those decisions, right?
Me: It depends on what you believe...  There are some people who do believe in curses.
Student: Do you believe in God?
Me: I don't want to talk about that right here.  It's not something we talk about at school.
Another student: I bet she doesn't.

....That was unexpected.  I didn't know how to react to that.  What I did was assert that we were in a government building and it was not the place to discuss things like religious belief.  But it struck me, because this was maybe the first time in my life that it has ever been suggested that I didn't believe in God.  Let me make this clear before I go on, that I most definitely do believe in God.  But if you asked me my religion, I would answer, "tolerance."  To me it's not about a label or a status, it's about a feeling.  I don't want to sound like a vapid LA model, but I consider myself to be much more spiritual than religious.  I believe there is something there.  But I find too many problems with the organization of the Church to subscribe explicitly to a doctrine.

Anyway, as I spent most of my school years being seen as the goody-goody honor student who listened to Bach in her spare time when not reciting memory verses facing upward, it was strange to hear a student suggest that I am not a believer in the Divine.

Why didn't I answer?  When I was a student, I thought it was silly that teachers weren't allowed to say who they voted for, what their politics were, or what they believed in.  We're together for hours a day; why can't we know what they believe?  But, along with many other mysterious teacher rules, this one was explained in graduate school.  I don't want to risk alienating any of my students.  If a student doesn't believe in anything, I don't want them to feel alone among a sea of bible belters.  I don't want to express my opinions on any of these issues, because I want students to be able to see me as someone they can relate to in as many ways as possible.  I don't want it to just be assumed that in my classroom we are all middle class, we are all Christian, and we are all Republican.  Not everyone is like that, even here in the South -- and I don't want any of my students to feel isolated because of their beliefs or home lives.

Just after the Columbine shootings, a book was released called She Said Yes, about the girl who unashamedly pronounced her love of God at the face of a gun.  I remember asking myself what my answer would be if I were ever met with such a scenario. Would I say yes?  Would I risk dying to answer a simple question?  What if I had kids at home; could I leave them without a mother because of my honesty?  But if I said no, could I forgive myself?  Christianity teaches forgiveness, but does it "count" if you go into the question thinking "I'll just say no, and God will forgive me."  I can't help but think that that's not how the whole process is supposed to work.

Then there are the irritating-as-all-get-out facebook posts.  "98% of people won't stand up for God.  Repost this if you are one of the 2% that will."  Such a post has inspired spin-offs such as "98% of people will not admit their love of dragons.  Repost if you  are one of the 2% who is not ashamed to stand up for what you love," and so on.  Every time I see this, I wonder how much attention we really have to cause to our religious beliefs.  Can't we be quietly religious, and not bombard facebook with it?  Does not reposting mean that I don't love God?  Of course not.  Does posting mean that I do  love Him?  No.  Something like that is between God and myself, and more and more I feel it should stay that way.

So when a student asks me what my politics/religious beliefs are, I pretend I have no idea what we're talking about and redirect the conversation as soon as possible.  It's not a private Christian school, and I don't feel like we should be talking about something so potentially isolating.  It is my job to establish a safe, trusting environment, and we can't do that if anybody feels alone in a class of students who believe something different than they do.

Am I overthinking this, like everything else in my life?  Should I just answer honestly?  I would really rather have a discussion about how the Lee family shared sacred secrets with Westerners, thus bringing upon their house a curse that took their lives.  It reminds me of the story of Atreus, which is a seriously messed up Greek tale (of course it's messed up; it's an ancient Greek tale).

I'm not sure how to wrap this up.  I'm not saying we shouldn't stand up for what we believe in.  But I don't want to wear a sign that says "I believe _________," either.  I feel our actions should show what we believe, and we shouldn't force people into discussions that they are uncomfortable in.  I don't like labels.  I don't like isolating people.  I like love.  I like tolerance.

Great Expectations

Okay, I'll admit that I have never read that book.  I started to... No, that was Wuthering Heights.  I was on page one for literally days before I gave up and moved on to another book.  That is NOT what this post set out to be about.  FOCUS.  You haven't done anything productive all day, no laundry, dishes, grading, dinner isn't even made.  At least commit to maintaining an idea through written expression.

An interesting thing happened today.  I said when I started this gig that I was not going to immediately believe the word of an honor student over a troublemaker.  Not that the honor student shouldn't be believed, but, if I was not there for the ordeal, it's not fair to take sides.  Sure, the troublemaker has a lifetime of crying wolf behind him, but if nobody EVER believes him, it won't inspire him to start telling the truth, it will inspire him to give up.  And back to the story.

A few weeks ago, a student who...... is not necessarily known for his achievement, in the classroom or in behavior.... scored a 94 on his vocabulary test.  I was so incredibly proud of him, because I knew he had been trying hard, and it feels so good when that much effort pays off.  The class applauded and he smiled, but a small voice in the class muttered something about how he had copied someone's test.  This didn't make sense, as he sits in the back corner and the students sit in rows (or did, at that time).  Plus, the muttering wasn't becoming an angry mob, so I let it go.

Yesterday, when I was passing back tests, a student did not receive his.  He immediately jumped to "It was stolen!"  Now, I'm a logical person.  I know that, usually "stolen" means "it fell of my desk, rolled under a chair, and I'm too lazy to look for it" or "I forgot that I put it in my locker a week ago" or "My friend borrowed it and I wasn't paying attention when he asked."  These "stolen" things almost always turn up.  But, as I had just spent the evening GRADING ALL THE THINGS, I knew that, if he had no test, there WAS no test.  I had kept them all together, and all tests were accounted for.  Maybe it really was stolen.  He then told me, free of mutters, that he suspected the aforementioned troublemaker, because he had stolen his test the previous week and had made a 94.  So it was true.  Or it was at least supported by present circumstances.  I told the test-less honor student that I would figure something out, but that I didn't think it was stolen by this particular troublemaker this particular time, because he hadn't gotten the kind of grade you cheat to get.  If you catch my drift.  He demanded a solution, and I panicked and gave him a 100 out of sympathy.  I couldn't make him re-take the test, I didn't know where it was, and even if Trouble had stolen it, it's not like he would give it back.

A few class periods later, I found his test hiding under obscure papers on my desk.  He had missed two questions.  Oops.

Today, I sequestered Trouble and told him that it had been suggested that he had not earned that 94.  I said that I had been disappointed to hear this, because I knew he had been working hard, and I wanted to believe he had earned it.  As I had not witnessed the ordeal myself, I asked him once if this was true.  He said absolutely not.  He said he thinks he knows who started the rumor and why, but that he had studied hard and earned the grade fair and square.  I probably should have re-tested him, but the hippie side of me screamed that if he was never trusted he would never do anything trustworthy.  If he had cheated this time, maybe our brief talk was what he needed to feel guilty about it.

He went back to his table, but he didn't do any work for the rest of the class.  I watched him sit there as he stared at the library wall.  He didn't even talk to his friends around him until it was time to leave.  What was the message behind that blank face?  Was it I can't believe that little goodie-two-shoes snitched on me!  Or was it I can't believe someone said I cheated when I got a good grade!  As he left, I overheard him talking to his friends.  I caught snippets of "Do you know who it was?" and "I can't believe someone would say that!"  The cynical part of me told the hippie part of me that he knew I was watching and was dutifully reciting the lines of Startled, Confused, Wrongfully-Accused Teenager.  But the hippie side of me told the cynical side to chill her grill and give him a chance.  Maybe he had earned the A.  Maybe not.  Maybe my believing him him will inspire him to turn around.  Maybe not.  Maybe he stared at the wall and plotted how to cheat more efficiently next time, and maybe he was wondering what was for lunch tomorrow and who to ask to tomorrow's February dance.

Fighting the Good Fight?

Ugh.  I am still at school, because I can't bring myself to muster the motivation to get out of the chair and go home.  There sits beside me a pile of papers, some turned in late, some just located, some not counted and re-submitted, but I can't make the pile of papers any smaller.  I'm listening to the ticking of the clock (that only sometimes reads the correct time) and the teacher talking in the room next to me.  I have a write-up slip to turn in, behavior letters to respond to, and extra credit papers to grade and record.  I discovered today that other teachers have been printing and sending home grade reports.  The floor is littered with paper and bent, torn workbooks.  I yelled at almost every one of my classes today.

I feel like a failure.

I don't understand why, when I show respect to the students, they act like they don't care what I have to say.  It seems to me that you would behave better for the nicer teacher, rather than hear that as some kind of thinly-veiled code for "do whatever you want."  When did that message get so lost in translation?  Should I have come in hard and strong and said "If you set one toe out of line, I will write you up, no questions asked?"  That's not my style.  I want to give every student the benefit of the doubt.  I don't want to believe every story I hear, every tattle I hear told.  These kids are good.  I believe that, when given the opportunity, they will rise the occasion.  

So why aren't they?  It's been said for the past several days now, by different students and well-meaning teachers, "Oh, they're just acting like this because you are a sub.  They wouldn't act like this for their real teacher.  They're usually so much more respectful..." etc.  Even students have admitted to me that they act differently around me because I am a sub.  First off - let me correct that terminology.  Because I hate being referred to as "a sub," as though my job title is barely worthy of syllables.  I am a TEACHER.  I am a Long-Term Substitute Teacher, but one of those words is TEACHER.  I am certified in three separate areas, and I have two degrees.  The only reason I don't have my own class, my own desk with apple and name plate is because of the job market and my own pickiness.  So to hear that they are behaving like this because I am a "sub" really stings.  Because what I really hear is "You're not our real teacher.  You don't matter.  We don't have to do what you say."  And maybe it's because I'm the youngest, or maybe because I paid attention when I learned about those certain inalienable rights -- but I feel I DO matter.  Call me crazy. 

Instead of conduct cuts, which I feel ultimately amount to nothing other than a personal, mutual vendetta  between student and teacher, I ask my students to rate their behavior in my class.  I ask them to make goals for themselves and talk honestly with me about how they are acting.  For some, this apparently means "Nice teacher doesn't punish me as long as I slap down some crap about trying hard, potential, maybe throw in a half-meant apology."  And that is disheartening to me.  I can't make these kids care.  I can't make them behave.  But I thought I would be the difference, that I would help them to see that they CAN be better, that they ARE capable of being "good."  But, from so many students, I receive barely more than "IDK."  Some just throw away my response, in much the same way they throw away my teaching, or any memory of my presence in their lives.  That is not what I set out to do -- to be forgotten.  I set out to make a difference, to be a strong, adult role model in my students' lives.  And, sorry, but I take their apathy a little personally.

But then there are the other students.  The ones who say that they really understand the lesson when I teach them.  The ones who suggest activities for class, the ones who ask me if I like working here and what I think of their behavior.  The student who is starting to improve in how he treats those around him, after two letters back and forth to each other.  The student who says that she sees these letters and my honesty with them as an advantage, and that she really appreciates having someone tell her exactly how it is.  It's a small, barely-burning match in the fog, but it's something.

Am I being impatient?  Can I really expect a student who has built up 13 years of apathy tho turn it around with just three little notes?  Will they catch up to the others one day?  Should I have silent class tomorrow, where the next person who talks gets a conduct cut?  I know the answer is probably to straddle that line between authoritarian and warm, caring hippie.  But I'm so new that the line is hard to see.  I WANT to be caring all the time.  And I want them to care all the time too.   I don't want to hear "it's because you're a sub," ever again, though I know I will.  I want all of the student responses to eventually be "I get it now!  I understand now why we do this, how I act, what I can do better, and I honestly care!"  But I know that's impossible.  I want to feel like I've made a difference.

I want the energy to get up and go home.

Am I smarter than a 5th grader?

I'm trying something new with some of my classes.  In two of the classes, I had the students take out a sheet of paper and give themselves a grade for their behavior today.  I asked them, on a scale of 1-5, how did you do today?  Be honest; this isn't for a grade, it's to see how well you reflect on your own behavior.  I feel like too many students just show up, throw down some kind of action, do some amount of work, and leave, without really thinking about what they're doing, how they look to others, or how hard they make anyone else's lives.  So I had two classes think about it.  I asked them to think about how they are acting.  I asked them to explain their score.  I then asked them to make a plan for what to do tomorrow to be better.

Some students confessed to cheating on their worksheets today (Oh, great...).  One said that it was I who had gotten mad at her when she had just been asking a question.  One said that the students would behave better if I punished them more.  I am so tempted to ask to see his Master's degree.

I'm not a big punisher.  It's not that I want to add a bunch of twelve-year-olds to my circle of friends, it's that I want students to think about why they do the things they do.  I don't want fear of punishment to be the main motivator in someone's behavior.  Plus, let's say I do punish someone.  I give them enough of whatever kind demerit it takes for them to get detention.  Then what?  they get written up, they can't go on field trips or participate in activities.  Okay?  To a student who has been punished their whole life, none of that matters.  None of that really makes them want to be better.

But what does?

I feel a bit hypocritical at times, because there are some things I do in life just to avoid punishment.  I don't speed for the sole reason that I don't want a ticket.  I think that, as long as you aren't going too fast, you would be able to stop should anything too important come about.  But I don't have the money to pay for a ticket, and so I don't speed.

I do, however, try to leave public places nicer than how I found them.  If I drop something in Wal Mart, I put it back.  Nobody gives me a demerit or a fine for not doing this, but I know that it is someone's job to tidy the store.  But, just because it's someone's job to clean a place does not mean I have permission to leave it in chaos, as though their job is beneath mine.

In the first scenario, I let punishment be my motivator, because I do not have any other motivator to follow this role.  I do not personally see the big deal with going a few miles over the speed limit.  But I do personally see the problem with acting like a princess for someone else to clean up after in stores and public places.  Everyone in the work force matters.

The problem is that, in some ways, the student who thinks I need to punish more does have a point. The rest of the students just don't see a personal reason why they should behave.  There's nothing at stake for them, they don't care how hard my life is or whether or not their classmate can concentrate.  They're just waiting for me to yell at them, demerit them, and send them out -- because it's all they know.

Is it possible for this to change?  Is it possible to inspire a student to find some reason to behave, other than "I don't want to get in trouble?"

This is one of my favorite videos in the world.  Watch it: here.

The thing is, as an adult I don't follow this all the way.  We've already discussed why I don't speed.  My reason for not trashing a place is concern for other people -- and most of my life has been spent being good to make other people happy. There are a few teachers in particular that I wanted so badly to impress.  I would even wear certain things just hoping they would notice and comment about it (never anything inappropriate of course).  I didn't work hard "because I did," I worked hard because my brother was a genius and I wanted to be good at something.  I worked hard so teachers, parents, elders would recognize me.  I didn't want a reward, per-se, but I suppose recognition is its own reward in a way.

Not until college did I honestly pursue knowledge for the love of knowledge.  Not until college did I revel in literary devices just for fun.  Yet, even in college, I wanted approval of teachers, of friends, of everyone.  Would I be different now, had I been Rafe's class (the teacher from the video) in 5th grade?  Can I give to my students a value that I am still working to develop myself?  Is it possible for these students to be motivated inwardly, or do I need to start writing cuts?  I've given four since I arrived in my long-term placement, and I genuinely believe that one of them might have gotten through.  But who knows, really.  I'm pretty sure that, as a middle-schooler, I would have taken the cut, rolled my eyes, and left without another thought.