Places I like/today's teaching f-ups/it's cold/I live with a little green bird

It is cold. I live with a little green bird. My students were terrible today. Terrible. Someone set fire to something in the hallway. I don't like teaching in a classroom so close to the front of the school and hence the administration. I never acted the way they do when I was there age. Some of them are my age. I must pause to feed Lester, who is peeping the dinner peep.

****

Lester is now feasting on lima beans, corn, carrots, almond butter, hemp seeds, yogurt, tofu, and those wierd hard whole wheat swedish cracker things--he likes the way they crunch.

So, yes, someone set fire to something. It wasn't my students, but I'm pretty sure one of my students was involved. I can't control 18 students if 15 of them are helions. I like them, and they are smart, but they are immature. I've been spineless and haven't actually sent them to the administration's office enough. But that's only recently become an option, and the admin folks are always busy on the last day of the session. Next session I resolve to be more of a badass. I just want them to be mature, so it makes me depressed to have to discipline them at all. Uhg. This is why I like teaching adults. Perhaps I should go back to working at night. Night students go to school at night because they have to work for a living, and hence they are kinder to their teachers.

But today had its high points. One of my students is an artist--and he's interested in words. He often makes up his own alphabets and symbols and then uses them in his paintings. Anyway, I brought one of my books--The Splendor of Islamic Caligraphy--for him to look at. He was so excited that I'm letting him keep the book over the weekend.

I had to retype that sentence several times. And this one. I cannot spell, and after teaching English all week, my spelling and grammar is even worse. Words begin to look strange and foreign. Like the word "week." What's with those two Es? Week. Wek. Weak. Weec. Weke. Ees. Ease. Eaze. Eshe. But I enjoy teaching grammar because grammar is all about illogical patterns that have endless excepts. Learning/teaching a foreign language makes a gal more aware of how language shapes the brain. But I'm a poet so I knew that already.

Off to "happy" hour.