I hate my job.

No. I just want to hold up my hand to anyone, to whatever question is asked, to whatever request, to whatever administrator. I want to hold up my hand: Stop. No.

Have still been in a bit of a fog, memories of Gramma care still so fresh on my mind, "are you warm enough?" she asked me about 700 times, the thank you's, the "I love you kids." Warm water from a straw in a certain glass, morphine patches and funny stories and middle of the night adjustments. Blankets and pillows to prop, hand holding, so much hand holding, wafer thin hands in mine that I would rub hand lotion into and up her arms, bone and loose skin. Funeral and family and bagpipes at the church, at the cemetery. Tears and stark awarenesses that I can't, I won't hear her voice again, ever. The tape I took from the player next to her bed, Ernie Tennesee Ford, spirituals; I played them on my way home from work today. Not necessarily what I would choose to hear, but my Gramma, I wanted to hear what she heard, I wanted to be close to her, still.

We had a big IEP meeting for M., my crazy Puerto Rican boy who speaks no English, who does no work, who wreaks havoc and writes foreign letters that have little resemblance to anything legible. I brought writing samples and stories of behavior, and 15 pages of documented incidents. The SPED teacher was 1/2 hour late, and brought little with her herself but stories of non-compliance. The principal sat in on the meeting as well, who I later had a meeting with about her observing in my classroom, standard, as everyone has done the last two weeks that I was absence.

"You and Ms. H (Sped teacher) were not prepared at all for the IEP meeting," she tells me. "It was an embarassment."

WTF? "I never had SPED kids in my class. I don't know how these meetings go. I'm three days back in school after being out for two weeks. What was I supposed to bring? He does nothing. I have nothing to show. You saw his writing. You saw the documented incidents."

"You should have counted the number of times he's run out of the room. You should have had a running tally."

Are you fucking kidding me?

"Next time talk to J. the SPED facilitator person and get a better idea how to be prepared. Don't worry about it for now."

Right. I'm not going to.

The meeting goes on. I don't know what the fuck she's talking about. MCAS's and FBA's and how many peace days have you had? and we have to get our attendance up, how are you documenting that?

D. continued to hide again today, J. was laying across tables, G. was found in the back of the classroom humping C. A. was pissed that he couldn't color all day long and sat in a corner banging his head saying "I'm stupid. I'm stupid." One of the children broke the pencil sharpener yesterday so there were no sharpened pencils. Fuck you.

"And you need to document every PD ... every team time, every mentor meeting - you can keep a notebook. I also need a portfolio of your lesson plans, attendence, FBA's, incentive plans..."

"uh huh, uh huh, right, sure, uh huh"

"And where are you in your licensure?"

I am a Montessori teacher, not fully trained, working on a temporary license. I'm supposed to take some teacher tests to get licensed, three hour long tests of general curriculum for public school that I have no fucking clue about. I'm still in training and have a shit ton of work to catch up and revise for my Montessori course.

"Well I'm still in training so I thought that would cover it."

"You have to take your licensure exam."

Fuck you. I go to work early every day. I leave late every day. I do the best I fucking can and now I need to put together portfolios and FBA's and write a note every single day to M.'s mother to let her know how he is doing, and have my para translate it to Spanish. Every day. I need FBA's on 6 of my kids, some behavior documentation shit. I need to get my third graders up to snuff to pass the MCAS exams coming up in the spring. And, apparently, I need to study and prepare for teacher licensure exams.

Blah and blah and blah and by this time I am so overwhelmed and already put in ample time not even including the hours over the weekend or the cutting out laminated materials or the creating my own materials. Not even including the hour and a half I spend in the car commuting every day.

Waitressing is looking real good right now. Being a check out girl at Shop and Stop is looking really good right now. Hell hole of a fucking school, "This school is a joke," my colleague said today, and you want me to do more work? Prepare for another exam so I can secure my license to stay here? What makes you think I want to stay here? Why would I want to?