On Disappointment

I'm staring at one of my student's French projects, unwilling, unable to open if for fear of what I'll read in there and I'm beginning to think that God is trying to teach me something on disappointment.  It started Friday when I was trying to make copies during my planning period.

At 10:45 I made my way to the office to make a copies for the rest of the school year.  Yes, the rest of the school year.  It sounds so good, doesn't it?  Needless to say, I was pretty cheerful.  I was thinking as I walked, "This will take 5-10 minutes, then I can go back to my room, eat a snack, and finish grading all of my papers.  It's going to be a fantastic day!"

Then I get to the copier and nobody's there!  It's really going to be a good day!  I even start thinking, "What will Mark and I do tonight?  Maybe we'll have tacos.  I love tacos."

I put in my copies and wait for the magic to start happening.  I wait.  And I wait.  And I wait some more.  After 9 minutes (yes, I was watching the clock) I can't find anyone else in the deserted office to help me so I decide nothing is going to happen and I just walk away.  It's 11:00.

I walk to copy machine #2 a little less enthusiastic, but remember, technology can smell fear, so never let it know how you feel.  Always keep your cool.

As luck would have it, nobody was at copy machine number 2 either!  Hooray!  I did my little happy dance as I put my copy in and...

...the machine cut off the top 2 inches and the bottom 2 inches of every copy.

Calmly I hit stop.  It kept copying.  I hit stop again.  It kept copying.  I hit stop/cancel job/clear/54380187-0309475 all while yelling "No!  No!  No!  No!"  Still my copies were coming out sans the top and bottom of the paper.

Finally, I yanked the paper out of the feed and ended the print job that way.  The copy machine could tell it was getting to me.
The clock read 11:15 now.

I grumbled about how the buttons on the machine that are supposed to prevent wasting paper don't work while I changed some settings and tried to problem-solve my way around the situation.  Nothing worked.

My colleague walked in and he fiddled with some buttons.  That didn't work either.
It's now 11:45.

It was time for backup.  11:45 means it's time for Stacie's lunch break.  She's the tech-queen and also a member of the cutest department in the school (everyone calls us that).  I called her while colleague x was still pushing buttons to no avail.  

"Help!  I'm in the teacher's lounge by the cafeteria and the copy machine is the devil!"  Stacie knows me well, and she came running to prevent damage to myself, the copier, and colleague x.

Stacie changed the settings, changed the margins, changed the direction of the copies, changed the orientation of the original copy.  Nothing worked.  I watched from the other side of the room as all my hopes and dreams were cut 2 inches at the top, and 2 inches at the bottom.  I thought about how now, instead of eating tacos we would probably have macaroni and cheese because I would need to stay late at work to finish all the grading I wouldn't be getting done during my planning period which was only about 10 minutes from over now.  I thought about what I would do if I couldn't make copies for the rest of the year.  Would I use the projector and make my students handwrite their exams?  Would I pitch a fit until the copy machine maintenance workers came and fixed the machine?  Would I hire a monk to make copies for me?

I figured the situation was hopeless and the next logical thing to do would be to flip the copier upside down and start beating that smirk off it's face.

That's when Stacie said, "Hey wait.  Don't you usually feed the paper in the other direction?"
Sure enough, there was no crazy setting that was messed up, just the paper going the wrong direction. Which, the copier should be advanced enough to detect and adjust to.  The copier in the other office is the exact same copier and it can adjust.  But apparently this one's special....

So I say all of this to illustrate a point.  I am disappointed.  I'm disappointed that the copy machine never seems to just make copies for me in a timely manner.  I'm disappointed that people I care so much for let me down.  I'm disappointed that dear friends are struggling with things I would never wish on my worst enemies.  And frankly, I'm disappointed that my students write sentences like, "Le Kilo(gramme)" in their projects and think that it's both a correct and complete sentence.

I mentioned earlier that I think God is trying to teach me something.  I can't help but realize that I wouldn't be disappointed if I didn't have high expectations.  And I expect a lot out of life, my friends, my colleagues, and my students.  If I gave up these expectations I would never be disappointed.  If I expected tragedy, disease, rejection, or utter failure I would not have to deal with nasty old disappointment any more.  But there's God again, tugging at my heart.  He's reminding me that my life with disappointment is also full of hope.  The disappointment can only exist because I trust.  And trust is a sign of growth.

And as I open the project in front of me, through all its mistakes and disappointments, I can still see growth.  And that's the most important thing.

Teacher Appreciation

You may not have realized, but this week was Teacher Appreciation Week.  In honor of this, the greatest of all celebrations that I don't get out of school for, my students (and several others) wrote notes to their favorite teachers.  Here is a sampling of notes I received, in honor of those precious babies who thought I would give them extra credit for writing their note to me.  I shall categorize them for you.

1. Some were short and to the point:
"you're special to me."
"you are awesome."
"you are nice."

2. Some were very matter-of-fact:
"you work hard in teaching"
"you are always smiling :)"
"you're so fun and understanding, and intelligent."
"you teach us what we need to know and you are very nice and respectable lady."

3. One was a little odd:
"You're Awesome...Meow" -this one included a hand-drawn cat licking it's paw.

4. Some had cute and endearing grammatical errors:
"Youre the awesomestest"
"The 2 years I've taken your class had have been fun!  You always have a positive attitude & you always know how to make any lesson fun :)" -she corrected her own mistake!
"Merci!  Tu a une prof magnifique.  Not only do you teach us french But you allow us to have fun with it <3."-for my non-francophone friends, she wrote "you has a magnificent teacher" and I'm pretty sure she meant "you are a magnificent teacher"...  maybe not?

5. And then there were my favorites:
"Cause you are a wonderful teacher and you are patient and very understanding and you take the time to make sure every student learns something everyday."
"You are my cousin and you have a great way in teaching.  I love you Mrs. Wehr"-this particular student calls me "Cousin Wehr" on a regular basis because she knows that we were meant to be family... it's particularly funny that she calls me this because she's black, and I'm the pastiest white kid you've ever met.
"You were my teacher for two years and if I didn't think I'd fail French 3 honors I'd take it just because you teach it."
"I love you so much and you love me the way I am and I know you wouldn't trade me for nothing! :)"

And I really wouldn't trade my kids for "nothing"!

Cute Kid Story #1

Being a teacher is probably the hardest thing I've ever done.  It's exhausting.  When I get up every morning I have to become a mother, a counselor, a nurse, a shoulder to cry on, an ear to listen, and a strict disciplinarian to 140 high school babies.  Occasionally I feel like ripping my hair out.  Quite often I feel incompetent.  But then my kids provide me with little nuggets I can chew on for a while that make me fall in love with them all over again.
Here begins my cute kid story #1.
So my students were working on a worksheet about reflexive verbs.  (If you don't know what these are, it's alright.  Understanding French grammar is not imperative to the story).  They were talking quietly and working together while I was walking around helping them with any questions, when, out of the blue, Little Billy (names have been changed to protect the sometimes-innocent) says, "Nous nous maquille.  C'est la vie."  Translation: "We puts on makeup.  That's life."
There are lot's of things wrong with this statement.  First, it's not grammatically correct.  Next, Little Billy is a thug.  He's got tattoos, sags his pants, and is an all forms of the word a "tough guy".  I wish I could say that I'm a brilliant French teacher and I had taught the kids to make funny jokes in French, but unfortunately I'm not that teacher.  This kid, after further examination, had no idea what he was saying.  He saw some words on his paper that sounded cool when he said them all together and then he blurted them out.
But maybe Little Billy had a point.  I know I "puts on makeup" every day.  Why?  I'm not really sure.  I mean, I could make up a bunch of reasons like, I need to look professional at my job, I like the colors of the eye shadow I have, a lot of my makeup was given to me and it would be rude not to use it, you get the point.  But when it really comes down to it, for me putting on makeup (and many other things I do) are just things that I do because, well, "that's life" and that's what we do.
And even though Little Billy does not "se maquille" every day, he get's it.
C'est la vie.