If you can hear my voice, clap once

so i have been meaning to start a blog for a long time. and then today i was talking to my parents on the phone going on and on about an interaction with a student i had today, let's call him Mike, and i realized that i always have a lot of stuff to say (especially about work) and that i often really like reading what other people ramble on about (like my cousin, Jill :) and so why not do some rambling myself? it might help clear the mind before bed. also, keeping a blog is one of those important things in "Stuff White People Like" and i like many of those things, so i might like this, too.

i don't promise to capitalize or use proper punctuation, however. and i'm not trying to be cute, i'm just feeling really lazy and my arms are sore from boxing class and i don't feel like pressing the shift button. i hope you can handle that.

so if you know me which i hope you do if you're reading this, you know that my job is crazy and a constant struggle and REALLY HARD and all of that. but maybe writing this will help me see the humor and positive things in the day to day.

like for example, today, with my fourth period class, i accidentally drew a penis on the board when i was trying to show that the last sentence of a paragraph (bottom of penis) always needs to tie back (tip of penis) to the first sentence of the paragraph (top line of penis.) if i knew how to draw and insert a "paint" image here, i would totally do that. in any case, a lot of laughing ensued, and i laughed too and it felt GREAT because i hardly laugh at all at school. it was like the best moment all year. then i accidentally drew a boob.

so the other thing i feel like sharing is that after school this kid, Mike, came into my classroom and sat down in the back and didn't say anything. and i had just been thinking about how i should call his mother because the last couple of days he has had his head down during class and has been rude and not doing his work. so anyway, i went back to where he was sitting and told him this and i said "what's been going on?" and i expected to get the normal shrug and "nothing!" response, so common among 14-year old boys. but instead, he actually said, "i'm having family issues."

note that i had never had any substantive, non academic conversation with this kid before. mostly he is the sort of quiet, under the radar, good student sort of kid. so when he said this, i was like "whoa." and of course i immediately started asking a lot of questions and he answered some and shrugged at some and said he didn't want to answer some but it seems the crux of the issue is that his uncle said something insulting to him last week, and it is still making him very unhappy. so of course i asked all about his safety, and whether he had been threatened, and he assured me it was nothing like that... and he said both his mom and his grandparents were there to hear the comment and that they were mad at the uncle, too... but Mike wouldn't tell me what it was! he said he "didn't want to repeat it." so i was thinking that maybe his uncle had called him fat or something (he's on the larger side). and i gave him some advice about having a thick skin and not believing mean things that people say to you, and about how he will probably feel less bad about it as time passes, and that maybe he should tell his uncle how he feels (he didn't like that idea).

anyway, the conversation wrapped up. i told him i was glad he had come and spoken to me. i really was glad. it made me feel important, and valued, and all of that stuff i struggle to feel when my classes are loud and disrespectful and angsty tweens say "no" to me all the time and laugh at the cat hair on my pants... and so when i was telling my parents about it, my dad said, "maybe his uncle called him gay." and i was like DING DING DING DING.

duh.

why hadn't i thought of that???

so maybe that's why he came to ME about this. i AM pretty gay.

anyway. any advice on how to proceed? i kinda want to be like, "hey, i hope you don't mind me asking this, but did your uncle call you gay? because if he did, you shouldn't feel bad about that! it's okay to be gay! I'm gay!"

but i don't know.

i mean, i guess i need to just follow his lead, right? keep the lines of communication open?

america's next top model starts in 3.