Hi, I'm Jami Denton, and I am a work-aholic (can you be a work-aholic if you don't really do any work; you are just at work?)

School ended at 12:00 today. It is now 6:41 and I am still at school. I think I must be the weirdest human being in the world. I have spent precisely 4 hours in my classroom piddling. I did run my exams through the scan tron machine (the best invention ever!), record the exams in Faculty Access (the bane of my existence), and make labels for two of my fresh, newly organized notebooks, but other than those things (all of which combined probably took me an hour), I have done nothing. In fact, I think my room looks more messy and disorganized than when I began to organize and clean it 4 hours ago. How did I do this?

I know it is learned behavior. When I was little I would hang out in my mother's classroom while she piddled. My mother has probably spent over 80 hours a week at school or in a school related activity every school week of her adult life (and a lot of those I was with her, books and baby dolls in hand). I thought I would break the cycle; I would leave school at a decent hour, not take work home, etc. But here I am. Still at school and I have a bag full of work to take home. And do you know what the really sick, demented part is? I feel invigorated. I am not stressed. I would probably stay here hours more if I did not have responsibilities at home and if rapists and murderers would stop frequenting the apartment complex next door. Should I get some sort of help?

The End of the Year

Teacher blood courses through my veins. My mom is a teacher; my dad was a teacher, preacher, and T.V. repairman before he became a psychotherapist. He still teaches Sunday school, and he always says, "once a preacher and teacher, always a preacher and teacher." (He does not say the same thing about T.V. repairman). My sister was going to be a teacher, but she called my mom (and then me) two weeks ago and shamefully confessed she changed her mind. In my family, this was akin to her calling home and saying she was in prison because she had just robbed a liquor store. My mom is still wondering what she might potentially do. What else is there out there besides teaching?

Even though I don't believe that my sister Karen's decision to pursue a career other than teaching has thrust her into the nebulous group of young adults without a future, I likewise have a hard time viewing the world through non-teacher glasses. My world is a teacher's world. My year begins in August, not January, and it ends in May, not December. I truly do love my job and it is more than just a job to me. It is my life, and it is a very good life.

This morning I had to walk through a gaggle of sixth-grade boys who were chasing balloons leftover from someone's early morning birthday celebration and popping them. I had to smile and shake my head as I watched about 20 boys chase one balloon, catch it gleefully, and then pop it even more gleefully. One day they will lose this innocence, and it will be replaced by the knowledge that being cool is more important than being joyful. I feel so lucky, however, that I teach students while they are still uncool enough to enjoy chasing around a balloon.

On my closet door, I see 20 cards that have been created for me by students this year. Each message is so very meaningful to me. When my students leave my classroom each day, they thank me and wish me a good day. If I scold one of my students during class, 9 times out of 10 the student will stay after class and apologize. In a world where people decry the inappreciative attitudes of young adults, I teach a group of students who let me know daily that I am honored and that my work is appreciated.

As I finish up my grading and plan for the exam, I am continually amazed at how much students can grow in just a year. I thank God daily for putting me in a position where I can be amazed and astounded by the ability of my students to grow and change. I teach different students today then I did at the beginning of the year. The other day I walked around the room while my students were in their book groups and listened in on their discussions about the books they were reading, and I nearly cried. I heard discussions about the place of science in our world, discussions about poverty, discussions about friendship, discussions about abortion, discussions about choices, etc. They were having real discussions about real issues by themselves. They sounded so grown up and smart. I felt pride welling up within me.

Yesterday, as I cleaned out my closet, I happened upon the responses my creative writing class wrote after September 11. This was the class that watched the Twin Towers fall with me. We all cried together, and then they decided, on their own without prompting from me, to create an anthology of their responses to the tragedy. Some compiled pictures, some wrote poetry, some wrote short stories, and some wrote personal narratives. Each piece of work is wonderfully elegant and poignant in its own way.

Daily I am priviledged to have these fabulous life-changing and life-affirming experiences. Yes, I have to deal with parents who think their children do no wrong. Yes, it takes a long time to grade papers and lesson plan (thus, I am at school at 7:13 p.m.). Yes, students can be loud, they do sometimes make really bad decisions, and yes, they can disappoint the fire out of you and tear your heart out. But all of these down sides are well worth it. I get to see a piece of the future grow every day, and, I have to say, it looks pretty good.

Popcorn and Coke-- Ambrosia? I think so.

Friday, I had some free time in the afternoon, and since Matt Elliot had demoted my blog to "wild hair" status in his blog links, I thought, "I will of my own free will, not because of guilt or a want to please others, write a blog." So freely and without shame, I sat in my cushy teacher's chair and composed a beautifully touching blog about my mother as a belated mother's day present to her. Brad came in and we talked a bit. He ranted about how cruel Matt Elliot is, how unfair he is, how he does not understand our plight, how he (Brad) was not going to update, how that would show him (Matt), etc. By the way, have you guys read his new entry, http://www.bsdenton.blogspot.com/? It also was so totally not motivated by Matt. So, anyway, I wrote this touchingly beautiful blog, probably the best piece of writing I have ever composed, and it has gone away. It is somewhere out there in cyberspace, circling the globe, seeking an audience. But, alas, you will never read it.

Sunday afternoon, I again sat down to blog, but I had absolutely nothing to say. I wrote a paragraph or two of absolute drivel, and then I decided that I should spend the rest of the day reading Real Simple (despite the fact that it should be called Really Simple in order to be grammatically correct) from cover to cover, and then I took a really, really, really long nap.

And now, I feel compelled to write before I clean out the closets in my classroom (yes, I am moving classrooms again this year), grade I-search papers (yes, I assigned a paper at the end of the year), revise both of the exams I will give this year, clean off my desk, and then return home to collapse blissfully on the couch for five minutes before I have to "make" supper. Yet, the muses are not being kind to me. So here are my three paragraphs, springing forth from within my soul. Not because of my "wild hair" status, but because I had something to write about and something to sustain me: popcorn and a Coke.

By the way, I quit Weight Watchers. I now subsist on just popcorn, Cokes, coffee, hot dogs, Campbell's Soup at Hand tomato soup, rice crispy treats, mint chocolate chip ice cream, and chocolate chip cookies. I call it the "End of the Year Teacher's Diet." Bring on the carbs!!

Read below if you need a serious blog; this is something I wrote a few years ago while my students were writing in creative writing.

The Picture I See

Perched upon a stool, I view my oasis--A picture more ambiguous than the Mona Lisa and more

miraculous than the Grand Canyon. I see fourteen puffy-eyed adolescents adorned in private school uniforms feverously scratching ideas on paper with whatever writing utensil they can pull from their pouches, steal from their neighbor, or scavenge from the floor. Their heads are bowed, their posture is imperfect, as they squint and lean in to their desks trying to force images from their minds to the crumpled, blue-lined notebook paper in front of them. Occasionally there is a hushed whisper, a paper passed down a row, as ideas are shared or short breaks are taken. Slowly one or two students begin to yawn and stretch, lay their heads tentatively on their desks, indicating that the ideas have stopped flowing or that they are at the hard part of their story. Occasionally, a student can not contain himself and he whisper yelps, "I got it" or "yes." Thesauri are pulled from the bookshelf as stumped students try to pull words from resources other than their brains. Chill bumps form on my arms and a tear crests my lower eye lashes. Nothing is more beautiful.