60 Years Are Too Many: The Dog And Pony Show

     9 Sept 2026

        I have blisteringly clamored against the teacher evaluation process so frequently that even Shakespeare's line "I trouble deaf heaven with my bootless cries" does not communicate the level of frustration I feel.

        Their favorite thing is to give you the elements they are looking for ahead of time, so you know to change everything you have planned so you can perform a dog and pony show for them.

        They give you "Look For's"- that I bellow loudly are "Gotchas"- which are great if you're doing That Thing the day they do the walk through.

        Today's case was the gotchas are all on baseline rituals in class; Cell phones, CLO posted, kids engaging in "discourse".

        I refused to do CLO's last year, 'cause I was ON STAGE where would you like me to post it? But in the classroom I have AV capability to show slides, so no excuse other than "But I don't wanna do it."

        We're in week three, I do not give a cell phone performance every class period. They get it and they comply.

        The "discourse" thing is annoying because...it's week THREE and sometimes I have to say things so they know what's going on, and there is nothing for them to discourse about.

        So if they land on a lecture day, or a work day, I'm done for.

        Today was supposed to be a research work day.

        They came to stagecraft. I've taught this class a few times in different buildings and my most successful class was the one that focused on the shows we were doing. It's practical application---I had to teach math and geometry to get them to understand set design, which they then built.

        But today, the theatre is dark. It's closed for renovation--as you know from the many verses we have sung together. So not only am I teaching stagecraft without a show, I'm doing it without a stage.

        This isn't new, I taught stagecraft online during COVID and found myself joyfully making kids dig through parental craft closets, recycling and kitchen ingredents--blood packs were a Big Hit. It wasn't ideal, but they showed up. A few even enrolled in theatre when we reopened.

        So I leaned into design, which is a lot of me talking and watching videos of set changes, quick costume changes, light angles and vocab. I recommend watching Legally Blonde the musical for this approach. 

        Then we read She Kills Monsters  using highlighters to  track their chosen tech needs. From there, we revisited vocab and began design conversations once we chose a theme on which to focus. Which would be discourse, but that was Tuesday.

        Today is Wednesday and they were supposed to be working on their morgues, which is screen time on chromebooks doing research into photography, art, opera, D&D and other productions. 

        This is a bad idea when admin wants to see them engaged in discourse.

        So I split tasks between groups, and did a warmup that imagined they had ten minutes to curtain. Set and lights had to figure out the new air conditioner, mask it in the window and troubleshoot why it keeps turning off (the old extention boxes I have daisy chained into my one outlet keep flipping off). Costumes had to stitch five buttons individually back onto five different shirts, and props had to go find five props the "actors" removed from the prop table.

        I thought it went great.

        I had nary a single kid who could stitch a button, but they know how to do it now.

        The costume crew won---they finished in seven and half minutes--so I gave them bubbles. Two of them gushed "Miss, you're my favorite teacher", which had nothing to do with teaching stagecraft and everything to do with soapy water and a wand.

         I haven't received my feedback, but let's go ahead and call what it will be:

        My CLO of "Ten Minutes To Curtain" was not wordsmithed in such a way that the prescribed vocabulary was included. Deduction.

        My kids did not "engage" in discourse, they collaborated to work together to problem solve. Deduction.

        The only phone out was mine. I took a photo of the prop table to give them for their search, but it never made it to my email box for printing. So I had to show them the photo on my phone. Deduction.

    It was delivered to my email at 11.33, which was an hour after the evaluation. I put it in the slideshow, 'cause my STL was looking at it, with the note "Received at 11.33". The only reason to do this was to be annoying.

    My kids talked to each other to determine what their biggest obstacle was and how they overcame it. Point.

     Then they dove into their research----which is surprisingly exciting for them, they are loving it---but that kills discourse. Deduction.

      One kid at a time used the restroom, but K disappeared for 20 minutes so I had to call culture team to ferret her out and send a second kid who was going to explode with a second pass. Only one kid can go at a time. Deduction.

       I praised them for being methodical and focused, as it's imperative that techies keep a level head at all times. Do not yell at the actor who took their prop to the bathroom and left it in the sink. Just go find it and dry it off. Point.

        I told a story of a kid in the room who stage managed both shows last year---a task we all refer to as "Building the plane while flying it". The second night of Odd Couple he kept a level head when the actors lost their way in the script and could not bread crumb their way out of it, so he made the quiet executve decision to just ring the doorbell so the next actor could enter. He was on headset, and told the ASM in the wing to place the actor behind the door and help her breathe and not panic, as it was pretty bad and most of the exposition explaining why she was at the door, was lost in the scrabble.

        And it was not made worse by J. He did not cry and run away from the board. He did not panic and turn off the lights, which would have triggered the actors and alerted the audience that something much bigger was wrong. He didn't hit the ringing telephone cue, as the actor who would answer was the one who was confused, and she would have said lines from a previous scene or worse, started a scene in the next act. Point.

        At this juncture I wish to again vociferate: performing arts do not fit your round holes. We are Proud Square Pegs. 

        It was not a masters class in anything new. All theatre teachers do this.

        It just felt nice to show the process to admin, because seeing two shows on the stage for the first time in years clearly was not enough to give this 24 year veteran a "pass" and say "Clearly, you are teaching The Things, the kids are on task and they must engage in discourse or how else would this get done?"

        UGH.

        I tried to attach said photo, alas it does not want to post here, either.

        Scene.

        

60 Years Are Too Many: Week Three

 

    5 Sept 2026

    I think it's either week three -two with kids-or week 73 of school.

    I had to take a sick day to take my mom to the doc. My district's sick days are ridiculous, they calculate how many you earned by the hours you've worked. It's not like previoius districts where they just hand you 12  sick days at the beginning of each year, and you spend them or they roll over. It's crappy.

    There is also no bereavement time, so when my dad died after I'd been in the building only two months and I had one day of sick time, that was just too bad for me.

    When this country finally burns down--I'll be dead, hopefully killed fighting on the right side of history--there needs to be tiers of sick time, or All The Sick Time and No Punishment. Just take as many paid sick days as you need for your sickness, your mom's Dr appointments, your childrens' illnesses and Dr appointments, your dad's death. Go. We aren't going to punish you for being human.

    Our Puritan ancestors were punitive Fuck Twats. Punishment only. No support. So Old Testament.   

    Allrighty. This Week In High School Theatre.

    Reminding all that I am still rebuilding a dark department. I managed a fall play and musical last year, but this fall we're closed for renovation---there's that LSOH song again. So. I'm teaching stagecraft without a stage, and Theatre 1 without...students. Scheduling 650 kids with every option is rough on performing arts. There's a choir with seven kids enrolled. I have five in second period and three in sixth period Theatre 1. If you combine them into one period, I'm no longer full time ---those of you who don't teach can hush up. I'm scraping by because I put up the first musical in several years. I can ride on that until the end of this year.

                     The Increasingly Annoying Tale Of No Air Conditioning.

    I have no theatre (see previous paragraph "renovation", then pause again to sing the song from LSOH), just a classroom on the second floor with no air conditioning. Not just "The district didn't turn on the AC" but literally, the heat register is heat only. It's been 95 almost every day for the last three weeks. My car said 102 when I left the building yesterday. I have ceiling fans, a box fan from home and two oscillating fans I liberated from choir and the dressing room. It's manageable with the windows open in the morning, but I have special needs kids fourth period with heat induced seizures.

    It's not manageable for them.

    In a building with 650 kids and- I'd be underestimating- at least ten empty classrooms, I cannot explain why it's so difficult to find another classroom for my kids with AC. But it is. 

    Last week I was in a room half the size of my theatre classroom, that had been untouched since Mr. Kotter quit teaching. They had to repair the AC. But there is no AV, no projector or way to screencast slides, which is what my kids were working on for their "What I Love" presentations. Bonus, I learned through the grapevine from a retired teacher that this room was not used due to aesbestos. Neat. This was the room they landed on after rolling 5 other room number possibilities, apparently none have AC.

    So Tuesday I will get the key to yet another third floor room, bigger with a projector, next to the art room. Allegedly with working AC. Unsure of aesbestos status.

    We are going into week three with kids and they're still shuffling rooms because apparently, once the AC was turned back on, there is no map of which rooms actually have it.

    I've only had one spike with the no cell phone policy, and she fell in line when I pulled the guilt card and told her I was in trouble for her trying to sneak her phone under the table. Guilt still works. Who knew?

           No More Folders Or Platforms OR Repeat Copy And Paste BS Please

    Ok. 

    I have LEAP, which is my evaluation platform. I have to create an SLO--which is data tracking---for one class based on the SLO. The class I track must have 10 students regularly attending to count. The SLO is a wordsmithed Student Learning Objective I must create for the year. I am judged on whether I accomplish the SLO. The class must have 10 regularly attending kids to qualify for data tracking. Yes, I said that twice.

    I had to track my MI/S (special needs) class last year because they were the only consistent 18 to show up. This year, I don't want to track them, because they are MI/S and do not fit any of the district bandmarks or state theatre standards. They're largely non verbal---I can't track projection growth. I fudged it last year by writing two plays for them to perform in the fall but...the theatre is closed this fall so...the only other possiblity -stagecraft--has 12 in it. They seem to be showing up, but nothing in that class really matches the theatre appendix I was given by the district. So I have to dig up my state standards and copy and paste whatever it says for stagecraft into the SLO document that I have to then attach to the LEAP platform. But first, I cannot figure out how to download my class list of names into the SLO document from IC. There is not a button. I think my STL (evaluator) did it for me last year.

    I have to post my emergency sub plans in a schoology page for the building.

    I have to take 15 district training modules.

    I have to post my assessment dates along with all my arts colleagues, in a document I can never find, buried in a folder I also cannot find. The assements are in my lesson plan slides and documents attached to my slides that I shared with my evaluators. The assessments have already changed three times, as my small class sizes eviscerated my summer planning for the classes, but there are words in the boxes. If they do a walk through and my kids are not doing the assessment they see written in the box, I guess I get...in trouble? Do I get to go home? Can I volunteer as tribute? I will let you know what happens, because I'm drowning in triple check "gotchas", and I will forget to change that specific box to match the altered lesson plan because I've already forgotten where it is.

    I have to write my daily classroom procuedures using the language from the appendix in yet another document, also located somewhere. I just copied and pasted from the appendix, which was attached, and could have easily been read by my AP. But I had to take the step to put it in the box because clicking on the attachment was too much for her?

    Even though we use "process" and "product" grade vernacular, I have to separate them out as "formative" and "summative" and repost them in other boxes in another document, even though in schoology it's "process" and "product".

    ALSO, schoology is where my grades are housed, but I have to push a button for them to passback to IC every night. I get in trouble if I don't do that, and I get in trouble when I ask why the stupid ass district isn't just using IC for everything, like every other district is.

    My gradebook is being checked weekly. If I don't have one process grade a week, I get a note. This is Not A Big Deal in theatre, as we perfrom in some capacity every Friday. But dude. You're gonna babysit my gradebook? I've been teaching 24 years, you've been teaching eight years and are the same age as my kid.

    I have to write a CLO on the board daily. This was a HUGE mohawk moment last year when I refused. I am IN THE THEATRE, where EXACTLY would you like me to post this bullshit? In protest I pasted a big piece of sticky butcher paper on the proskene wall with a generic CLO, which I was graded down for at every walk through. But now I'm in a classroom ---well, four periods anyway---with an AV cart TV and I can just put up the slide. I still refuse to wordsmith it to their liking, becuase it's stupid, and no CLO is going to change the fact that a kid was placed in class involuntarily and thinks theatre is gay, or didn't eat breakfast, or is going through social media withdrawl.

    I have to "internalize" my lesson plans on a document with columns that demand to know if I Did The Thing The Way They Wanted And How It Went. Fuck that. I'm already not doing it.

    I have to get on the slide show from the PD day that I missed to take my mom to the doctor and get the document with the three different New Exciting Innovative Approaches To Teaching and choose one to try in class, then fill in the box with what day I'm doing it so they can come watch. Nope.

    I promise that is not all of it, that's what I remember.

                                                     Legally Blonde

    I have to teach stagecraft without a stage, so I leaned into design. Which means watching Broadway productions to attach vocab to The Thing since I can't walk them backstage and point at a flat. So I used Legally Blonde the musical, because these kids have never seen any show, ever, and it's big and splashy and has all the vocab words.

    Then, my Theatre 1 classes turned out to be too small to play improv games, and I had to switch plans to a more History and Lit approach. While I did that, I made them watch Legally Blonde and choose a character to track. 

    Long story short -TOO LATE- I've watched Legally Blonde for two weeks.

    I can track every character's journey and relate it to the theme "Overcoming a stereotype". Even Warner, who overcomes nothing and remains a stereotype as the control in this experiment. 

    I watched it so many times, I started equating Elle's journey with AOC, hearing lines like "They laughed at me like they're laughing at you" and believing for a moment that NOBODY has ever thought of that before.  

    That moment extends, and I'm looking at the privilaged men attacking women who just want to be lawyers and the show's universal theme is actually a UNIVERSAL THEME and I wave my arms at the kids and ask questions to push them to connections. They're making them, they're just quiet because everything sucks and they're not white so the whole idea of a blonde women being the underdog takes them time to process.

    OH, which reminds me, my hispanic male colleague told me his students talk shit about what they're going to do if they see ICE and he said something really powerful that I wish to pass on. He told them "You have to be careful, white people are getting shot protecting you. ICE doesn't care." Friday there was a Colorado school ICE walkout, but I have no idea if any of my kids attended. I think one did, he wasn't in sixth period. I didn't even know about it. Yet teachers are 100% indoctrinating Anti ICE feelings according to many right wing social media trolls. 

    UGH.

    I have said for years it will be the bullshit that makes me quit teaching.

    Platforms, more paperwork and forced reflections, forcing me to try your new exciting innovation that DOES NOT FIT IN PERFORMING ARTS but I have to sacrifice a class to try it in front of you, only for you to realize it doesn't work and for you to say you have no ideas about how to make it work, so I just lost a day of instruction for you to not even admit that you have No Idea How To Teach Theatre.

    So Leave Me Alone.

    Scene.

    

    

    

60 Years Are Too Many: Mom's Dr. Appt

     3 Sept 2026

    Gloria Steinem died. 

    I still am not getting my "Title One Incentive" pay or my  stipend, so my checks are not just short because my insurance is more than my COL raise and gas and grocery prices have shot upward, but short because I'm not being paid what I'm supposed to be getting paid.

    Just filling you in so you don't think I've turned the corner and am now Dolly Pardon level positive.

    My Mom's Appointment Story:

    I arrived at 10.35. She wanted me at her house for pick up by 10.45 for an 11 am check in, the appointment was for 11.20.

    She knew I was there to take her to the Doc. She said she was "worse than usual" and couldn't remember anything and felt dizzy.

    Five minutes later, she said she didn't know why we were going to the Dr. I said "I'm not sure, either, I think it's a follow up to your Psych and memory appointments." 

    She pulled out a yellow sticky note from her purse that said MEMORY.

    She laughed.

    She then pulled out two more notes on St. Jude Stationary with lists of words: "pancreas", "prednesone", "back pain", and "weight loss".

    I found a receipt for Great Cuts on her counter. "Mom, you have a grandchild who is a hairdresser, they've offered to cut your hair repeatedly."

    "What?"

    "Why'd you pay for a haircut, Noa will do it. They're a hairdresser."

    "Who?"

    "Genoa. You have a grandchild who is a hairdresser."

    "I do?"

     Ok.

    As we waited in the lobby, mom shared with me that she had "researched" her symptoms and concluded she has some random wasting disease. I said "Please do not tell the doctor you self diagnosed on the internet." 

     When we were escorted to the room, the nurse asked why she was there. She pulled out the blue St. Jude's notes and started reading. I interrupted "Mom, I think this is your memory follow up". The nurse smiled and listened to her list, everything but "pancreas". Mom then dropped the wasting disease diagnoses and I just slapped my hand to my head. The nurse smiled and took her blood pressure.

    I was recording for my sister so we have the info, but I don't know how to use voice recordings on my phone, I just use video. This is a problem in a doctor's office, so the kind nurse helped the geriatric child of the geriatric patient by downloading voice memos onto my phone.

    When the doctor arrived, she asked how mom was doing. Mom began to read her St. Jude notes. The young doctor -who is clearly a very kind human and who is used to answering the same questions ad nauseum from mom, let her finish before saying "We're here for your memory follow up." Mom looked at her, then back at her notes.  She read "Weight loss" and the Doc laughed. "We talk about this every time you're here. You've gained three pounds since your last visit. You're losing weight because you are forgetting to eat."

    The next one was her back pain, which the Doc pointed out was an issue three weeks ago and was likely a pulled muscle, as mom still works in her garden. Mom asked about renewing the prescription for prednesone and was shut down.  Nope. They don't do that with that med. "Would you like to schedule a physical therapy appointment? Would you like them to come to the house?"

    "Yes."

   "Great, we're here for your memory follow up."

    Mom looked at her notes. The Doc prompted her to look up. "Do you understand?" 

    Silence.

    "Mom, you're here for your memory appointment. You gained weight because you're remembering to eat. The back pain is from the gardening." She looked up and nodded.

    This is where the bomb got dropped and mom wouldn't look up from her notes unless I forced her to.

    She now has a working Alzheimers diagnoses. 

    For a woman who has been complaining that she cannot remember anything, she was improbably shocked.

    I sat there listening to the litany of tests they've run, trying to figure out how she has Kaiser at the age of 81---shouldn't it be Medicare? Is Kaiser part of Medicare? CT scans, MRI's, psych appoinment, upcoming referral to neurology, a cacophany of follow ups and other appointments for her additional physical ailments--I tuned out to wonder about insurance.

    She can still drive as long as one of us is with her and it's a known location.  She needs to remember to eat. She needs to go outside more than just gardening and try to walk, she's unsteady but she needs to do it. She loves word searches which is a great thing for her brain. Nothing, really, is changing. A care team will reach out to us to talk about strategies and she has to see the neurologist to make sure Parkinsons isn't riding shotgun with Alzheimers.

    Nothing, really, is changing. 

    Except what the diagnoses is doing to her mental health.

    She was really committed to the Cachexia self diagnoses.

    My mom is a control freak. I will pause while you loudly roll your eyes because kryssi is a control freak and there are no surprises here.

    So when mom decides she has A Thing, she has A Thing and nobody's changing her mind.

    She asked again about prednasone.

    She again said her back hurts.

    She again brought up the weight loss. She was hyper focused on her St. Jude notes.

    The Doc asked again if there were any questions. Mom was buried in her notes, where she had written "pancreas". She was convinced her back pain was her pancreas, but of all the words on her blue note, this was the only one she did not say outloud.

    Mom didn't take physiology, and I'm not saying jack about jack, because she'll forget, anyway.

    So I decided the Doc needed a good parting shot and said "Mom, you wanted to know where your pancreas is." The Doc looked at me and I explained that my grandmother died of pancreatic cancer at 63. So that's where mom's head is.

    She explained where the pancreas is located, and walked mom through what the symptoms would be. 

    Since your pancreas is on the front of your body, there would be no back pain.

    The Doc left and the nurse re- entered to give mom a flu shot and set a three month check in appointment.

     All done, we went to the Wendy's drivethrough to get her a vanilla frosty and burger. I struggled with the robot voice enough that a human finally took over. Mom didn't want a combo and the robot wouldn't let us out of it. The human understood. Once back at her house, she sat with her head in her hands. "I can't hear and I can't see and I can't think I can't live!"

    I'm no good at bedside stuff, especially right now. I congratulated her on remembering where to return her handicap placard when we got in the house, and she said "Whoooopeeee!" and I shrugged. I thought it was funny, and that's all I have.

    Because this sucks. She didn't have to go through this with her parents. Grandma died at 63 and I am unsure if grandpa made it to 70. Neither really had memory issues---they were both raging alcoholics so even if there were any, it's unlikely anyone noticed, as they frequently spewed word salad. So there is nothing on which to anchor her experience, either for good or bad.

    This sucks.

    Nobody wants to lose their mind.

    So I listened to her, and answered a few repeat questions while she slowly spooned her frosty. She asked me five times why I didn't buy myself a burger. There is no way I'm telling my mom the real reason --- I fear poison meat---so I told her I stopped eating fast food.

     I told her five times.

     She seemed to relax a bit and at least stopped looking shell shocked. So I asked about her friends, and church. She asked about the kids and Jim--who she now remembered, so the frosty must be magical medicine--and then decided she was tired and needed a nap.

     Which is where I left her. Feeling a bit more positive and ready for a nap.

     Until she wakes up and remembers the diagnoses...

     This Sucks.

60 Years Are So Many: Week Two

     30 August 2026

    Nothing is easier.

    Everything is more difficult on every front, and many times cruelty leads.

    I can't be here any more. I hate it here.

    The Cruel King makes everything worse. For everybody. Not just Americans. The world is worse off because of him, and his sycophants support and celebreate. Murdering and incarcerating homeless veterans and American citizens. Deporting human beings to Africa who are not from Africa. Murdering our beautiful wild horses.

       I've sobbed uncontrollably three times this week. 

       Three times.

       NOT including Dolly and Tim's death sobs, those are counted separately and are double digits.

       If I stop checking the news, I won't get any better. It's in the air. Everyone is angry and exhausted and just waiting for this horror to end one way or another. 

       300 teachers in my district did not get their COL raise at all.  Our insurance rates went up, no clerical issue there, but not the raise. That's a clerical error we have to wait to be fixed. While our bills pile up.

        For ten years, I've felt like John Coffey, but this year has been The Worst. I literally weep constantly, for the same reasons he did. He saw the cruelty of humans and it broke him. His eyes just leaked 24/7. I feel you, John Coffey. God speed, I know you were grateful to be free of this pain, even if you were innocent. 

         Everybody's vying for some kind of control in their own life. For one of our counselors, this translates to controlling scheduling, even if it makes no sense and is not what either the students, parents or teachers want or need. They're literally just making it harder for us to do our job, and upsetting the student and frustrating parents. That's it. Well done. Take a bow.

        Our little independently owned local gym up here on Green Mountain closed because his landlord wouldn't let him sign a new lease. The landlord is putting the whole strip out on the street so he can sell it to a developer and make more money. 

        We have classes across the board---gratefully it's not just me----that have single digit enrollment. One class has one kid.

        When your building only has 650 kids in it, you can't offer IB and Honors and ROTC and Engineering and Performing Arts and art and multi media. Facts.

        The lunar eclipse after the glacier disaster in Nepal was also A Lot. The eclipse was supposed to be an electric switch on old tired ideas and lies. 

        Huh.

        Nepal got shattered by a piece of glacier that melted and collapsed...because climate change isn't real so we've ignored it, and now it's not just happening but will happen again.

        I can't think straight, I thought writing would sort it. Nope.

        I dropped my phone last night---my old phone that I should get replaced but I'm poor---and it finally cracked.

        The eclipse was cutting power to things we won't do ourselves. I followed spiritual instruction,drank water went to bed at 7.30 and was out. I was not supposed to doom scroll, so I laid there listening to my head spin and finally conked out until 5 am. 

        The day of the Nepal flood I was dizzy all day. Was that Wednesday? Literally, I couldn't stand up straight. Gratefully, I know it's not "me", but unfortunately, I never know if it's my family or the world. This time it was the world. Whoo hooo.

        BTSN was Thursday. I actually had a few parents, which was nice. The AC was still not on and I had two MI kids go down. One threw up, one had a seizure.

        Then Friday morning, after many emails regarding the AC in the room, the building manager told me there IS no AC in that room. Those are heat registers. There is no AC.

        There is NO AC?
        But they put MI/S kids in that room who have heat induced seizures...because nobody knew there was no AC?

        So I did not react well---please see Nepal flood, dizzy spells, Tim and Dolly and counseling issues---and turned immediately on the AP and Dept Chair demanding that they move my class to a room with AC. Which they did. Because I'm right, not because I'm unhinged. 

        So now I have two classrooms, because there is no way I'm moving everything to a conference room on the third floor. I'll just use it for my Peer to Peer kids until the heat breaks  then we'll move back down.

        The Good News is that we're now GREEN, which nobody outside of education really gets or cares about. The story of WHY we were orange in the first place is one of serious villany on the part of the district. RED is DANGER you should probably close, but my last school in a different district had been red for years, nothing changed, they didn't get better despite the Evil Empire who took over, but also did not close.

     It goes: red -danger, you suck, we're probably going to close your building, orange-still danger, fix it or we'll turn you into a charter, yellow-less danger but move it along and GREEN YOU'RE CLEAN. We went from orange to green, completely skipping yellow IN YOUR FACE DISTRICT, so the principal bought green gummies and bandanas and candies and crepe paper to celebrate on Thursday---and then said "But it's not official until Monday so don't tell anyone."

    Sometimes...I just...SIGH...whatever. 

    While that's good news, it's not going to change our enrollment immediately, and nobody's addressing the small elective class sizes. Not my problem.

     I've been dizzy all day again, like on Wednesday. Maybe I'm just getting sick. That'd track, we all get sick the first weeks back. I'm taking off Thursday to take mom to her Dr. Appt. Which is a Whole Other Thing. Kaiser has an uber service for their patients, but it's limited rides, and my mom's number of appointments exceeds her alotted rides. So...what do people do who don't have children to schlep them around? And how come we have to take our own sick days to do so? Shouldn't there be a "Gotta take my mom/dad to the dr." sub days in addition to the ones we need when we ourselves are sick? And damn, if you have kids at home, you also have to take sick days for them, not yourself, and everything sucks all of the time and I hate it here.

    I tried.

    Honestly. What a fucking week. First week with kids: scheduling issues, new elements forced on us and three planning periods a week now booked with data tracking and filling in boxes to prove we're teaching what you see with your eyeballs when you enter. Then a glacier wipes out human beings and structures. Then Dolly AND Tim die on the same day, even though he died so late it wasn't reported until the next day. Then a meeting that is supposed to be a celebration but ends with "Now we have to stay green so work harder" with no time to process the fact that Tim and Dolly DIED and a GLACIER melted and crashed into both Nepal and Tibet. And a lunar eclipse. Did I mention a counselor is being difficult as well, upsetting kids and parents and teachers, Oh My.

     I'm doing so well that I laid in bed Thursday after Back to School Night and thought about being trapped in a glacier mud slide. How comforting it would be to just get knocked over and take in two big lungfulls of mud. The first my body would reject, because our stupid consciousness thinks we need to fight to live, but it would be like drowning. Just relax and let it happen. Suffocate and then peace.

     Nobody cares.

    If they did, funding would exist to make sure countries are prepared for these inevitable events, the effects of global warming. Climate change. Dirty words, like universal healthcare. The damn glacier has been melting,someone had to know this could happen. Yet...here we are, with a thousand people dead -so far. OH, ya, and China is censoring the news, so people have no idea what happened and are missing family members. Because that's how authoritarian regimes work.

    That's how ours will work. They're going to rig the midterms---they rigged the elections---and if that doesn't work they'll yell FAKE and CHEATERS and disregard or interefere with all registered democrat ballots. You know this---All Is Lost.

    We missed our chance to storm the castle, so now we have to just live as serfs and die quietly.

     Sorry to bum you out, but you can't just bury your head in the sand and wait for your fucking prom any longer. You've made your choice. Enjoy our pain, poison food, no rights, illegal wars, death from curable diseases. You Win. You "own the libs". 

     Congratulations. To the winner go the spoils.

     Have fun.

     When it's your turn to suffer, I hope you hear me say "I told you so."

    Nope, not feeling kind at all.

    Scene.

    

(FB) 60 Years Are Too Many: First Week Back

     21 August 2026

        There is no way I'm living through this and still remaining employed in May if I don't force the practice of writing every Friday.

        I'd write daily if I could.

        But the AC is not on yet in the building--because why would it be?--and it's 80 degrees in my second floor classroom with three fans, ceiling fans and closed blinds. The window bank is west facing. Even if the AC was on, my registers are disconnected and haven't been reconnected.

        There's a reason, hold on.

        I have MI/S students in Peer to Peer theatre. These are "Multiple Impact Severe Needs"--- defined as SSN in other districts---kids with multiple obstacles; CP, premature, autism spectrum, speech delays/difficulty, and seizures.Two of them have heat induced seizures, which became ubiquitous in January when the heat registers came on and the kids responded by seizing.

        So. I asked the building manager to dismantle the registers to avoid the trauma these seizures cause during theatre class. Which they did.

        The registers  were never reconnected, and now it's 80 degrees with no air conditioning in my room, and I'll have these kids on Monday.

        Maybe they'll fix it. Maybe the AC will come on.

        Maybe monkeys will fly out my butt.

        This week in review:

        I went back Monday. "Teacher directed work day" means well damn, now I have to deal with all the crap I relocated from the theatre and loaded into 233 last May. Because the theatre is closed for renovation. I will pause while you sing a phrase from Little Shop Of Horrors "Closed For Renovation".

        That was fun, wasn't it? I'm happy we shared that moment.

         This is largely a lesson in "Do something today that future you will appreciate."

        Fuck Past kryssi.

        It's not as much schlepping as it is realizing I have to teach Stagecraft without a stage, and finding cardboard, and buying hot glue guns and planning to build models and morgues and keep the kids active and tactile in a classroom while forcing them to learn design. 

        Tuesday was my district directed day. So I spent 8 am-4 pm with the other theatre teachers. Not all of them, some of them are too good for the meetings -no names mentioned- but the core that show up regularly are good people who I enjoy. Also against all odds, the old dog learned a few new tricks. All theatre is derivative, but still, I learned derivations. 

        I approach these mandatory meetings with the same grit with which I face my mammograms;necessary, frequently painful, occasionally the tech thinks I'm funny, and sometimes I say I attended but I did not.

           Oh ya, I need to schedule that. I missed it this summer. Anyway....

        Since we only have three Forced District Meetings this year, and since we as a building are Fighting The Man -"The Man" being the district--I figured I'd go. Represent! We can't all win awards, some of us just keep doing our jobs.

        First of all, it was at Montbello High School. Which is a DPS school located in Aurora. The mailing address is Denver but...it's not. It's Aurora. So...that was a fun drive, full of trauma and PTSD. Yet it is a gorgeous building that is not even remotely wheelchair accessible. I am not in a wheelchair, I just take note of such things, and you see those two statements as unrelated, and you are wrong. This is my brain and my blog. Try to keep up.

         It was a long day, but to be fair, I enjoyed my time. Even though nobody really talks to me, because even for a theatre teacher I'm awkward and weird 'cause I'm an introvert who looks like she will bite you. Very Wolverine. Which tracks. And now you hear C. Thomas Howell yelling "WOLVERINES", which means we're friends. Love you.

        Wednesday the real hell began: meetings. I have to give my principal her propers, she has slides like I do---just words, very little to look at, maybe a GIF or two and NO AI-- and strips it down to Whatcha Need To Know. She holds the line and I love it. I do not always agree with what the line is, but damn she does everything for the kids and the good of the building at the forefront. Dude. I've never had a principal like this. It's wild.

        Then yesterday and today, more meetings with departments and the realization that she's leaving the dirty work to the department chairs. I was feeling vaguely hopeful after Wedesday, Thursday pushed it a bit and today was utter hell.

        I'm Done With Platforms. I'm Done Being Evaluated. I'm DONE submitting slides and lesson plans and assement dates  on three different platforms to prove that I mounted the shows you saw with your eyeballs.`        

        24 Years. 40 plus shows.

        All performing arts teachers feel me.

        Dude...Did you see a show? Did you watch a concert?

        Do you think the kids did that on their own?

        Stop making me create a paper trail so you can prove I did the thing You Saw With Your Own Eyeballs.

        I literally ran out of spoons today. I completely melted in our department meeting. I said outloud. "I'm not doing this; fire me" and I meant it.

        We'll see if I do it or if they fire me. Hours of my time on a computer that I hate frustratingly trying to get technology to work for me **** CALL LADONNA LENZ SHE WILL BACK ME UP**** When she was tech at Littleton, even she couldn't figure out why nothing worked for me the way it worked for others. We even had to have a district guy come in to make the professional declaration ; "I've never seen anything like this. IT hates you."There is something IN me that fucks with technology. My brain hears bees and the platforms do not work.

        Facts.

        This is year 24 and I'm calling it. Nothing you're making me do impacts my effectiveness in the classroom, but it does impact my mental health. I am not a better teacher because I linked my daily slides and data on two different platforms,reposted the calendar you posted in the slide show into my "Learning Log", reposted my assessment dates from my syllabus into said LL...I dunno what else, my brain melted.

        Out. Of. Spoons.

        So no. Not doing it.

        I happen to know of a Really Crappy theatre teacher in another district, who does this shit and gets good marks, but produces nothing. 

        Which one of us is an effective teacher?

                                                      cell phones

          The state of Colorado passed legislation banning cell phones at school.

          I have many opinions. The primary of which is TOO LITTLE TOO LATE. Which seems silly as it's a statewide ban in all public schools-how is that too little?--but still. It's my blog.

         While I have always been a screaming bitch about cell phones on stage,this is not new. However, what IS new is our team---consisting of choir, band, theatre and art--must have the same solution. I can't do bags and art does a box and band does pockets. We have to all align. Not the whole building, just us. Because...why?

          If I'm on stage the chant is "Come in, go potty (yes, I say "potty" it's funny they're in high school), phone in your backpack, backpack in the house, bodies on stage."

          But now I'm in a classroom, so I have a box.

          I also don't have a backstage bathroom so it's "Get in, shove the phone in the box and siddown."

         It's a cell phone storage box the building purchased for all of us. That I have to put together. 

        Assembly required.

        As the principal said "Bob the Builder".

        On Friday. This meeting and box reveal was on Friday. Today.  After a week of putting a classroom together, district meetings; after struggling with platforms, heat, no AC, arthritis, failing eyesight and no interest in building a fucking cell phone box.

        I built it wrong, cried, put it back in the package and returned to the platforms.

         Which made me scream.

        So that's how it's going.

        How're  you?

        All in all, in conclusion, to sum up: it's fine, I'm fine, stop looking at me.

        I'm fine.

        Scene.