Rachel K. Headphones

I stayed over at my boyfriend's apartment last night as a peace offering. I never stay at his place anymore. Aside from the "dude smell," general theme of dishevelment and lack of a coffee maker, I find it increasingly difficult to be organized at his place in terms of the things I need for my masters program. Through the grace of google docs, I can generally do homework from his place, but I am at the point where that isn't enough anymore. My own workspace is surrounded by instructions, lesson calendars, and post-it notes with due dates or important reminders. More importantly, my apartment has a coffee maker.

In any case, I woke up at my boyfriend's this morning after 10 hours of glorious sleep (yes, I went to bed at 9:30pm) to find that my headphones had been chewed by a certain nameless kitten (I'm looking at you, Frank Lapidus). One of the squishy ear parts had been removed and no doubt chewed and hidden. I was rendered annoyed and angry at the ball of fur and feline nonchalance. Instead of dealing with this minor incident like a grownup, I dealt with it like a whiny grad student, made it my boyfriend's problem, and left his apartment in a state of despair.

I was grumpy all morning in class, and found it hard to feel engaged in the lessons we had. I realize that phonics are probably important to someone, but they were not important to me today. Yes yes, hat sounds like bat, but my HEADPHONES ARE RUINED SO WHAT DOES ANYTHING ELSE MATTER?

This afternoon I drew a picture that I decided would help me get over all future wrongdoings of my boyfriend's cats. We have decided to move in together, so I'll need to be vigilant about not hating the cats, who are admittedly totally adorable, and not often on my shit list. Here is my template:

History is bound to repeat itself; I must be ready with a template when it does.

I think that having a template is going to help me get through future annoyances that pets tend to incite. Lord knows, I am not without my own annoyances (I talk to them like they're babies, I don't share my dinner with them, and I don't floss after every meal), and the cats can't do anything about that.

Where does this fit into teaching????? It does, I promise! I know that this is a teaching blog!

I think that kids are undoubtedly going to annoy the crap out of me. It is in their nature, and just like I cannot fault a cat for being a cat, I cannot fault a 5th grader for being a 5th grader. 5th graders are going to be douches sometimes! I just need to find a way (ooh citing my own mantra) to remember all the things I love about them. I think it would be a good idea to create some kind of visual reference like a bulletin board or something easy to look at, and put up lovely things that each kid does. For instance, if Kid A cuts a fart in the middle of class and blames it on me, and I want to defenestrate him in front of everyone to show him that I'm boss, I can instead walk over to my bulletin board and remember that Kid A also told me I smelled good during the first week of school. Take that, Kid A - at some point you LIKED the way I smell. I don't know if this would be something I have at home or at my actual desk.... I suppose it will depend entirely on how much my students make me hate my life sometimes.

The moral of my story is that my boyfriend's cats and my students are going to make me hate my life sometimes; it's inevitable, and I can't fault them for it. It's important to highlight all the times your cats and students make you feel really doggone happy to be around them, and to call on those moments in times of unmitigated fury.