Day #101

Man, a killer week. Every day up at 4:45 and typing away at plans, at work by 6:30 and doing stuff in my room until the kids roll in at 8:30, and then late nights with meetings after school and parent conferences and calls and more planning time and I didn't even do any assessment this week.

I took my Crew boys over to the Dollar General to buy them school supplies because I'm tired of them having no binders, paper, pens, pencils, etc. We'll see how long these supplies last! They were very appreciative, especially when I bought them G2 gel pens. Gel pens are the bling of writing implements, held in awe by the boys, who will fight if someone steals a gel pen, and who have no qualms about disrupting class for 20 minutes over a gel-pen dispute ("He got my pen!" "Somebody stole my pen!" "Lorr Jimmy took the ink out my pen!" "Slick Woo borrowed my G2 and gave me a lead pencil back!"). I fully expect to see boys with large chains around their necks and the dangling diamond-encrusted G2 logo. Even kids who don't write a fucking word during class or at home want these pens.

We went over to Harper's Ferry yesterday to plan out a field trip in May. I can barely keep my head above water with the work I have to do NOW, let alone planning the next trimester out already--but that's the job. It's lovely out there, even with no leaves on the trees. Hard to believe that was once an industrial center, a stinking filthy town with foundries running--America's first military-industrial complex. Saw a crane standing by the river, watching for fish.