And yet..

It's a new school year. It's a new school. It's a new day and I'm feeeeling good. No, scratch that. I'm not. I can't manage to get keys to any room where I need to work or teach. Even my attempt to get them copied at the local hardware store ended in failure as they don't work. The custodian made some promises. I walk around begging to borrow scissors. Staplers. Keys. I've spent $250 on supplies. I do something and it gets undone an hour later. And yet...
I already love my students. The sassy ones who can't keep their mouths shut, the smarty pants ones who think they already know it all, the ones who are so distracted by their hormones that they aren't even sure what classroom they are in, and sadly, the drug-dependent ones who have made some pretty bad choices and might be lost to the power of the Lotus.
The staff love to gossip and judge. I can't stand any of that nonsense. I keep to the ones who focus on instruction and walk away when the whispered tones begin. Of course, setting up the Teacher Resource Room does make gossip avoidance somewhat impossible. Nothing goes as planned. Nothing goes as hoped. Some days nothing goes at all. And yet...
There is music. There is laughter. There are hidden treasures. The librarian is the hardest working person on staff. There are CRAZY race issues. There is hostility. Some people seem to be waiting to take a match to the place and watch it all burn away. There are a few people who have screws loose. There is a lady who eats from the garbage every day. I can't tell if it is because she is mentally ill or because she is broke or both. I have tried to speak to her but she does not respond clearly. She is a novel. There is a man who prints out hundreds of pages of real estate listings every single day. I have no idea what he is supposed to be doing. There are people who lock the doors to their offices and do absolutely nothing. There are people who scramble around all day trying to do everything. There is not much in between. There is a diva who thrives on his own melodrama. There is so much malnutrition and anger, and sadness. And yet..
Today we had an amazing conversation about the value of law and order. And the abuse of law and order. There was not much law and order in the discussion, but the substance was there. The seed was there. And yet..
It's taken me two weeks to put up bulletin boards and they are the worst bulletin boards I've ever put up. I feel that I have all these tentacles stretching out only to discover I am trapped in a net. I have a thousand half directives. I feel like a Cloze reading and I am not sure what to put in the blanks. And yet..
There is hope. Somehow at the end of the day, there is always just enough hope to bring me back for more.