Some of the highlights of my job include the mundane day-to-day comings and goings of high school. I like getting to work with teenagers, even though teenagers are, generally, giant hormonal balls of emotions hellbent on driving me insane. That aside, I have a pretty good rapport with my students. They come in in the mornings and are generally chipper and at least talk to me (the girls come into my classroom to use it to primp; I have a wall of floor to ceiling mirrors. It's the highlight of my day).
But you know they trust you when the shit hits the fan.
The first incident happened during finals week. I had a student OD on pills. In my class. I'm not 100% sure how I handled it; looking back, I know I handled it correctly, by my brain snapped into survival mode and I can't explain the how or the why. About a week later, as I was grading English journals, I found a victim's outcry in a student's journal, which about knocked me over with a feather. I turned it in to the administration like I'm supposed to, and that student was supremely pissed at first, but they've at least calmed down to the point that we can be in the classroom together and I can help on papers, homework, etc. It's been a weird couple of weeks.
On an upside, a former student contacted me via Facebook to tell me that she's naming her kid after me. Which is EXACTLY what I needed to hear. I directed her years ago, when I was still doing clinicals for school and she was a senior. She was in a rough patch and I came along at just the right time, I guess. She's expecting her second now, and her baby will have my name as a middle name. Which is the awesomest part of my job.
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