Well, it's been a tumultuous past month, but I feel as if the storm between John and me has reached a point of being calm. With that calmness brings a yearning to write again, even if it's just the silly musings of my days.
My classroom has horrible, old, ugly-colored carpeting. The carpeting is mottled with various shades of brown and neutrals. I'm sure that when the rug company installed it, the colors were labeled as: tawny, burnt sienna, mahogany, copper night, amber, and beige, but the simple assessment is this: it's fucking ugly.
That carpeting has been in my classroom for the 10 years I have been there, and probably for another decade and a half on top of that. There is a large rectangular rust stain from the carpet cleaning company moving a metal bookcase halfway across the room, then deciding they no longer wanted to move it. There's bubbling that occurs right in the center of the classroom on warm, humid days. On muggy days, the classroom smells of adolescents and old carpeting combine to create a hay-like scent.
I generally have an air freshener plugged in to camouflage the horrendous smells. It makes me think of Upton Sinclair's Jungle when people took advantage of the immigrants by selling them spoiled milk, mixing in water with the curdled liquid, so that there was the appearance of freshness. This isn't as drastic, but it's the connection that comes to mind.
Today, there was a potent smell of Axe body spray in the air. I asked my 8th graders, "Did anyone spray Axe spray?" Of course, no one responded. The strong odor remained in the front quadrant of the room, strangely in area where no students sit.
My words that got a laugh during today's class: "The scent must be from the ghost of a guido who is inhabiting our room....Rodrigo."
About 15 minutes later, I renamed our ghost and announced, "Yo, it's Joe Toritelli."
My classroom has horrible, old, ugly-colored carpeting. The carpeting is mottled with various shades of brown and neutrals. I'm sure that when the rug company installed it, the colors were labeled as: tawny, burnt sienna, mahogany, copper night, amber, and beige, but the simple assessment is this: it's fucking ugly.
That carpeting has been in my classroom for the 10 years I have been there, and probably for another decade and a half on top of that. There is a large rectangular rust stain from the carpet cleaning company moving a metal bookcase halfway across the room, then deciding they no longer wanted to move it. There's bubbling that occurs right in the center of the classroom on warm, humid days. On muggy days, the classroom smells of adolescents and old carpeting combine to create a hay-like scent.
I generally have an air freshener plugged in to camouflage the horrendous smells. It makes me think of Upton Sinclair's Jungle when people took advantage of the immigrants by selling them spoiled milk, mixing in water with the curdled liquid, so that there was the appearance of freshness. This isn't as drastic, but it's the connection that comes to mind.
Today, there was a potent smell of Axe body spray in the air. I asked my 8th graders, "Did anyone spray Axe spray?" Of course, no one responded. The strong odor remained in the front quadrant of the room, strangely in area where no students sit.
My words that got a laugh during today's class: "The scent must be from the ghost of a guido who is inhabiting our room....Rodrigo."
About 15 minutes later, I renamed our ghost and announced, "Yo, it's Joe Toritelli."
