okay, so listen to this shit.
5th grade, my favorite teachers were both english teachers. one of them, mr. candia, left my elementary school after my 5th grade year when i left and went to the middle school i was starting 6th grade in. he was my english teacher that year, too. i mean, like, shit was real. he and the other 5th grade teacher and my principal from elementary school were all like bffs and had lunch together and shit. we all went out to dinner with my rents after my 5th grade graduation. mr. candia was the reason i went to Deerfield Academy for their summer program, he recommended that i apply for it. he was a fantastic person.
in 7th grade my english teacher was a slightly frightening, tiny skinny woman, ms. potyrala. her, the social studies teacher across the hall from her, and myself used to have lunch together and they would let me do all these extra projects and shit. ms. p really pushed me to enter mr. o'byrne's poetry slam even though it was mostly 8th graders and i didn't like my poems that much. she trained me to get over my stage fright. this woman pushed me, a lot, because she knew i could handle it. i did the best book report on Lord of the Flies even though by then it was a 9th grade book. she was always the person i went to when i needed a shoulder to cry on. more than my friends.
8th grade, i had mr. o'byrne for english. he already knew me from the poetry slam and he was only 20 something so he was the "cool" teacher. he used to tease me and my friends all the time, like mean teasing, like the little boy in the sandbox that would pull all our pigtails. he really pushed me to be a great writer, too. that man had so much faith in me. and he let me skip mr. clark's science class cause i was always way too good at science for my own good and mr. clark was a bit of a creeper. so o'byrne would let me in his room and we'd just eat the candy he had stashed in his desk drawer that no one else knew about. we pulled pranks on each other. he always had me do little go-fer errands for him, like making copies or operating his video camera when he was trying out for some travel channel show.
in 9th grade, i had mr. barnes, and he had the most soothing, deep, monotone voice, and i would always fall asleep in his class. but sometimes we would get into these controversial discussions and i was always the raging vegetarian feminist who would bitch everyone out every time they opened their mouths, and he thought it was hilarious. it was his last year before retirement, so he was lax on everything. i would always talk to him before class and suggest stupid little projects i just thought would be fun to do, and he always let us do them. like the time we were studying poetry and i suggested that everyone bring in a song to play for the class and we could go over the lyrics on paper, to help everyone understand that music is just poetry set to music, to maybe make it easier to analyze. it took us like 2 weeks and made that such a BS class for a while but it was awesome.
in 10th grade i had mr. rieker. who was this kind of loud old irish man who looked more like a weathered fisherman than a high school english teacher. he talked through most every class about his own life, and all the things he's done/had happen to him. with some occasional reading and bs-essay writing. but i loved his prompt questions and always took them way far. and he loved that i loved hunter s. thompson. and he told us all year he would tell us the story of how he got shot this one time, and towards the end he finally did, as long as we agreed to take notes on it and a quiz later, to prove we were listening and not just using the class time to fuck around. he got shot by a cop and sued and won and threw a huge "life is short so let's get drunk in the 70's" party, with t-shirts and everything. he loved my writing, and always cut me a break when i needed one. he called stef and i, "frick and frack" and would slam things on his desk when the class got too loud. he was a scary dude. but also reminded me of a teddy bear. he took me aside one time after class to tell me my essay on women's issues in The House on Mango Street was the best of all the ones he read from all his classes that year. he retired in my senior year.
in 11th grade i had mrs. hogan. she was a short, like barely 5 ft tall woman. everyone else in my class hated her, but i loved her, and she loved me. i got an A on every single thing i handed in in that class. teachers pet? you haven't seen a teacher's pet if you weren't in that class. this woman LOVED my writing. we had to write a fairy tale for one assignment, and the limit was 4-7 pages. mine was 15, and she accepted it. and took time out of the beginning of 2 classes to read it to us out loud. she even asked me to autograph a copy of my essay on 'home' because she said she wanted to have it when i became a famous writer. she was awesome. she retired at the end of my senior year.
in 12th grade. i had ms. keenan. and she was another amazing and caring english teacher who pretty much became my best friend. she taught me some awesome things. she taught me how to write flawless thesis statements. and she was the only teacher to ever call me out about sleeping in her class, when i went to her office one day and asked to skip her class to work on my AP Art portfolio. she said Yes, as long as you promise to stay awake in my class for the rest of the year. and went on to say something about how bright i was, and how i would be surprised how much i'll miss if i sleep my life away. and that moment alone changed my life, i swear. oh, and she let me make up a written essay after school when i straight up just DIDN'T write it during the in class time cause i was being a brat about something or other. i didn't even expect her to let me finish it, even though i went to her and explained myself and apologized. she was kind of a hard ass, but just in the way that she knows what her students are capable of, and she expects nothing less. i wish i knew more about her, but she was incredibly private about her life outside of school. she sent me a card after school ended to congratulate me on my AP scores. i remember her reading one of my short stories out loud to the class and being amazed at how well she read it, like she knew exactly what i was thinking when i wrote it. i remember her giving us In The Lake of The Woods to read even though it was "controversial" with the school board cause the book said "Fuck Jesus." i know she has two weimaraners.
last year, i had tammy peters and hannah larrabee. i was closer to tammy, but hannah was awesome, too. tammy quickly caught on that i liked writing, and we talked about that, and then everything else, after classes. i even started to walk with her to her car, cause it was winter and after 7 in manchester and she had to park a block away. we still e-mail a little. hannah liked that i liked sylvia plath. we bonded over that :P besides, her poetry is AMAZING.
...so, that's my crazy account of all my love affairs with english teachers. didn't even mention my creative writing teacher, ms. mackie, or all the english student teachers i became friends with. i don't get it! there's just something about english teachers and me, we're meant to be best buddies. heh. maybe i should have been an english major instead?
other life updates:
-my parents are going to the woodstock museum AFTER they drop me off at school cause they'll be on vaca then. what. the fuck.
-still growing my hair out.
-i like knowing who my real friends are.
-12 days left in springfield!! wooooo!
-maureen and craig make most things better. but she interrupts him a lot. i feel bad :/ they want to hook me up with his brother nate so bad haha
-vanilla smirnoff + orange dry = orange creamsicle.
-dunkin donuts iced coffee with skim milk is bearable.
-True Blood is getting INTENSE. i'm sorry, but Team Eric, plz.
xx
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