in the true idealistic spirit of a first year teacher (and someone who had recently moved to NYC), back in august 2009 i had very grandiose plans regarding the documentation of the year to come. clearly, none of those plans were carried through to fruition (unless you count numerous “i hate my job and want to move back to LR” themed facebook status updates). instead, i’ll offer a list of things this past year taught me. hopefully i’ll be able to expand some these vignettes into full-blown stories, eventually. others stand alone.
- new yorkers are not as unfriendly as the world would have you believe.
- grad school is a piece of cake. a frustrating, time-consuming piece of cake.
- i will never get sick of this city. even when i hate it, i love it.
- there is no such thing as listening to too much gaslight anthem.
- you can't keep every friend you ever made. sometimes for good reason.
- pretzels do not make a sufficient lunch. in much the same way that beer does not make a sufficient dinner.
- grown ups can be bullies, too - even ones who are supposed to support you. on the plus side, i now believe in karma.
- some things that are not meant to go in the freezer are even more delicious when accidentally frozen. namely, individual boxes of horizon milk and yogurt.
- as soon as i recognize my love for a particular brand of milk/yogurt/oatmeal/etc trade fair will inevitably stop carrying it.
- teachers deserve all the time off they get. especially ones who get chairs thrown at them.
- i should have written down every word out of jerry’s mouth. every. single. word. however, there are five i could never forget… hood over head, eyes cast downward, mumbling: “i love you, ms. price.” (and least you think i’m getting too sappy, he’s also the chair-thrower)
- if you can survive being a first year high school special ed teacher in harlem, you’ll feel like you can survive pretty much anything. you know what? go ahead and strike “pretty much.”
- D75 teachers have more personality than others. in addition, teaching fellows have more personality than non-fellows. which (logically speaking, of course) means that D75 teaching fellows are pretty much the most spectacular people on the planet. (cue the sappy...) as challenging as this year was, i consider myself humbled & honored & incredibly lucky to have been placed among such a fine group of people. there’s no way i would have made it through without them.
