call me eLLe

Man, I want to be an art teacher.
I was asked* to cover sixth period Drawing and Painting during my prep this afternoon.

Unbelievable.

Ms. Fines was not discernable sitting among her students when I first walked in. She did not possess the telltale woebegone* look indigenous to the English Department from years (or months) of bleeding* over the papers of the dilletante offspring of Las Vegas' high society. Vegas is, afterall, a city--maybe more than any other-- built on numbers. Grammar and spelling and complete sentences never factored in never had a chance, though we* masochist English teachers hope otherwise.

No, Ms. Fines looked fresh-faced and happy from her side of the eisel--oblivious to the true state of our country's future. She doesn't realize that in a few short years the torch is going to be passed to a generation whose greatest contribution and legacy will be monosyllabic if even pronouncable: cuz, u, ur, lol, btw, ttyl.

"Hey Fines, check it out," said a boy at a table in the back of the room as he waved his chalk interpretation of emoticons.

Hey Fines?

When she left the room what I suspected was confirmed--I was in an alternate universe where Harvey Danger's Paranoid plays on the radio (did I even know we had radio access in our rooms?), illegal candy bars are consumed without an ounce of fear of retribution and colored Sharpies and scented Mr. Sketch markers* overflow in pencil holders on desks. There was not one red pen in sight.

For a moment I imagined what it must be like to never ever ever have to explain the difference between a colon and a semi-colon or to take a Dramamine before settling into a long night of English 2 T.S. Eliot explications. I mean, how amazing would it be to just put my hand in a jar of cold green paint and swirl it across a blank piece of paper and call it teaching? Much more amazing than the task at hand--correcting a past deadline student newspaper article on the dangers of high schoolers overdosing on prespcription drugs that was reading more like a how-to guide to get high when you're parents are rich, absent, and strung out.

*good grammar is the new black: asked*
asked in this case is a euphenism, which is the substitution of an agreeable or inoffensive expression for one that may offend or suggest something unpleasant ; also : the expression so substituted for the word "told." Given that said bliss had arrived on a late flight Thursday, I called off Friday last minute forcing last minute shuffling on the part of the substitute coordinator. This means that I will be his "beck and call" girl for at least the next three weeks, which means I will be called three minutes prior and politely asked to show up for any teacher who has an emergency doctor or pedicure appointment before the official end of the school day. This also means that I will politely, if not chirpfully, accept and graciously give up my prized prep period (equivalent to a breath of air). So, this is me...blue in the face chirp chirp chirping away.

*bleeding: NOT a euphenism. Instead a metaphor. 1: a figure of speech in which a word or phrase literally denoting one kind of object or idea is used in place of another to suggest a likeness or analogy between them (as in drowning in money NOT ME, or as in bleeding red ink all over high school writing SO ME)



* We versus us: a grammar problem that plagues people well beyond their school days. We in the sentence "We masochist English teachers..." is used as a subject and therefore us is disqualified. Use we as the subject (or agent of the action in a sentence) and use us as the object of the sentence (or the receiver of the action in a sentence) as in "The least you could do is give us woebegone schoolteachers an annual allowance for Botox and seaweed wraps."



eLLe speLLs *woebegone: adjective, exhibiting great woe, sorrow, or misery being in a sorry state (as in, did you see her at Pure on Saturday? Her outfit was woebegone).


*scented Mr. Sketch markers. Do not even try to tell me you don't remember these as second only to the perk of sniffing glue in elementary school.