So, I am absolutely in love with my new school. I could use any number of cliched adjectives to describe my students, and it still wouldn't do them justice. I honestly can't believe I lucked into this job.


Also, Facebook can kiss my ass.

Oh my god, you're still single?! At 27?

There are a lot of assholes on this site, you know? I don't know if it's always been that way and I never really noticed, or if it's some new phenomenon.

So I'm talking yesterday in my fourth period about dramatic build, trying to explain to my kids what an inciting incident is, when one of my students raises his hand (this is actually a rare occurrence--a student actually bothering to raise his hand before asking a question? I was blissful. Well, for a second anyway) and asks with all sincerity, "Mr. S, how is it they say a girl can get pregnant even if a dude doesn't skeet in her?" Laughs erupt. I blink. And blink again. Now, this is a school that employs a pregnancy prevention counselor--our kids are fucking like whoa. So I'm stuck. On one hand, I feel compelled to warn him about the dangers of pre-ejaculate, and on the other, this is completely out of left field and takes time away from what I need to cover. I started to stumble around an answer before telling him to come back later. He didn't, but he said today he forgot. I'm not sure why he decided I was the one qualified to explain safe sex practices to a twelve-year-old. They don't prepare you for this.

OK, so sometimes working with children can be incredible. I went over to the art teacher's room today during planning and she showed me some of the work her kids have been doing. They've been doing these drawings where they fill in their silhouettes with things they like.This is so wonderfully absurd and perfectly summarizes the children (so little, yet so desirous to be grown and exhibit what they see in popular culture) that I had to take a picture.



Guns and knives and football and Winnie the Pooh. It made my day.

OK, so it was a little longer than two weeks; perhaps a month, but I'm back.

Things are...interesting. This town doesn't quite feel the same, but that's understandable. The situation is different. These kids I'm teaching, though, they're fucking hardcore. I think there was a fight every class today (not in my classes, but in the school). They're really prone to that. There are several every day. I guess maybe that's just part of being in that awkward pubescent stage. They've gotten better about talking when they're not supposed to, but they're still not the most outgoing of students. They don't like to participate much. It's been a task to get them to try. It'll get better, though, I'm sure.

Anyway, more later. It's good to be back. I've missed my WarShip fix like whoa. I can't say, though, that getting away from the internet was an entirely bad thing. It's good to take a sabbatical every now and again, I think.

I'm going to be without internet for a while. Be back in two weeks or so.

The next three weeks are going to be insane.

I went Friday to meet with my adviser at College of Charleston to register for classes and plan the next two years of my life. I recently decided to go to graduate school for elementary education. I was going to teach third graders. This decision came after being unsuccessful at obtaining a job teaching drama with South Carolina's alternative certification program. I had come to terms with this, and was excited to move forward.

However, Saturday night, for the hell of it, I decided to take a look at the website for a school district I knew was waiting for funding to start a new drama program at the middle school. And the position was listed. I called on Monday and was immediately scheduled for an interview on Wednesday. My interview was at 10:00, and by 10:10 I had the job. This is both absolutely exciting and absolutely frightening beyond comprehension. I get to teach theatre; it does not get any fucking better than that. But it's a brand new program and I have to design the curriculum in about two weeks (or, at least, the first few weeks and a general outline of what I want to cover later). My first day is the 14th, and students begin on the 20th. The board didn't even adopt a textbook yet. I asked the principal about them and he said he'd "check with the high school to see if they have any." Uh...what? I am grateful and thrilled to be taking this job, but I have to take pause at that. It seems so far to be a bit of an unorganized situation.

I have to move and find a place to live in about a week. I'll be moving back to Florence, which is where I went to college (about forty-five to fifty minutes from Myrtle Beach, for those not acquainted with the geography of South Carolina). I'm very excited about this, as I love that town, smelly and boring as it may be. I'll probably head back there tomorrow to peruse a few promising neighborhoods.

I will likely be scarce around here for the next few weeks as I try to figure everything out.

A bit of advice: if you're having a wedding in Charleston, SC during the middle of the day in July, you should choose a church with central air. Your guests will appreciate it.

On the plus side, I may have lost forty-five pounds today.

Sometimes you just gotta say, "what the fuck, make your move."