Teacher's Log . . . A Beginning . . .

Mountain Date: 8/10/2013

Dear Friends and Family, 

Let me begin with excessive groveling.  I'm so sorry, so, so, sorry that I haven't properly been writing letters keeping you all informed of my adventures as a fledgling math teacher in rural Kentucky.  I have excuses i.e. that I've been in summer boot camp where Teach for America has been using me as a slave--or perhaps indentured servant is the more apt metaphor since in exchange for free work they provide room, board, and they help us pay off our college debts--but things will get better since my vagrant lifestyle is about to end as I've finally gotten a real life job with a real life salary teaching Algebra at Leslie County High School in the three street town of Hyden, Kentucky.  

Here's a picture of the school:

Rather Coliseum looking, but you couldn't ask for a lovelier setting. 

I could ramble on and on about the oddness of setting up my classroom and being a teacher who this Wednesday will be teaching actual students despite not looking much older than the students she's teaching--pretty much every time I introduce myself to staff at my school as the new Algebra teacher they exclaim "but you look like a student!," which, as you can imagine, is hardly comforting--but I'm sure that I'll have much fodder about things like that later.  Now, I feel I would be doing you a disservice if I didn't relate a few of my summer Boot Camp stories since it was one of the most surreally amusing experiences of my life.  

Besides, you don't want to listen to me ramble on all day about quotidian nothings when I should try for gripping, brief, and very readable tales, right?  What with brevity being the soul of wit and all that, riiiiiight?

Right! So on with the tales.

Tale 1:  Flea In Terror!

Once upon a time there was a poor orphan girl named Annie with striking reddish hair, eyes the trembling blue of a sea after a storm, and a lovely smile.  Though really, she wasn't a literal orphan, her parents had just abandoned her to take a scholarly jaunt through Great Britain and also lived across the country when they were in the US.  In truth, her hair wasn't naturally reddish, but artfully dyed through the use of a henna wash.  Oh, and her eyes were kinda . . . meh.  Greyish.  They could look blue if she wore blue clothes.  And as for the smile.  It is rather nice, but the poor girl was so cursedly unphotogenic that I can offer no proof of it.  But on with the story!

Little pseudo-orphan Annie had traveled far across the plains of America from her native land of Utah in order to receive training in an apprenticeship teacher program called Teach for America.  You see, Annie was a starry-eyed idealist type who despite being a millennial  i.e. suckled on sarcasm, couldn't resist the warm fuzzy feeling associated with do-gooder organizations that profess to be for America . . . so long as they're not Tea Party affiliated!  And so Annie signed up for this program, and they shipped her to the muggy Mississippi Delta.  

The eeriness of the Delta made young Annie very nervous.  In her native land there were mountains that kissed the sky, created a nestled bowl for her town, and served as convenient reference points.  Mississippi was so utterly flat that Annie felt like lost and like the sky was about to eat her.

See!  The freaking thing is stained bloody red.

It also made her feel small, insignificant and very lonely.  She missed her family and friends and desperately wanted someone to cuddle . . . and so Annie decided to do the next best thing.  "I think I'll tame one of the feral cats that lives on campus and keep it as a pet for when I move back to Kentucky!"

On Delta State campus, where the TFA housing was, there were about 7 feral cats including three adorable white kittens which Annie dubbed: Nietzsche, Schrodinger, and Box.  With her friend Dutch, a quirky boy who was also lonely for that special sort of joy that only a cat can give,  Annie set out wandering the campus at night, boldly swatting down house-sized mosquitos, and building winding trails of tuna chunks to slowly lure the cats into a life of comfort and joy.  

Nietzsche . . . at least I think.  All of the kittens kinda looked the same.

And Dutch.  He's kinda like my human pet.

But then . . . about day five of kitten taming something strange happened to Orphan Annie.  Every morning when she woke up her legs would have ten or so little red bites in clusters of three.  Back in the magical land of Utah, where bugs are a scarce and legendary thing, Annie had never had any problems with bugs, so she had trouble identifying what the bites could be . . . all she could tell is they weren't mosquito bites.  So Annie decided to inquire with the locals and promptly was told that it could be:

• Bedbugs!
• Chiggers!
• A Staff Infection or 
• S C A B I E S . . . 

All these suggestions were very informative (i.e. horrifying) but not very helpful.  Annie searched all of these problems extensively on the internet and none of them seemed quite right.  Something had to be done quickly because the bites were getting worse.  Annie itched like mad, so much so that despite dousing her legs in every anti-itch ointment she could find she'd wake up every morning with red fingers and bloodstained sheets.  She also had to give up wearing skirts because her students certainly couldn't see her legs.  And most nights what with the itching and heavy workload she only got about 3 hours of sleep.  Her whole life had dissolved into a rather kafka-esque dark comedy.  

This is not my leg but a fair approximation of what it looked like.

But despite the pain and confusion Annie trudged on; taking the 6 am bus ride every day to her summer school site, putting on a smile in front of her students, applying ointment, hitting her head against walls, and occasionally weeping.  

Then one day as Annie fed cats with Dutch a pair of students passed them by and one girl snidely remarked:  "Ewwww!  Those gross cats are going to give you fleas."  Hah, though Annie, what a ludicrous idea.  

Then she said to Dutch, "Humans can't catch fleas."  

"Actually," he said, "I'm pretty sure they can."  

An hour of internet research later and Annie was convinced.  Rats, I have fleas.  So, what's a naive first-world damsel to do?  All.  Out.  War.  

Within 24 hours Annie:  

• Flea-bombed her room.
• Washed every article of clothing she owned.
• Got a steroid shot at a local clinic.
• And decided to abandon all of her anti-pesticide scruples and thoroughly douse herself in Deet bug spray at all times.

And so, life gradually improved for Orphan Annie.  The bites didn't stop itching for about 4 weeks and still haven't quite faded, but she didn't get any more.  232 all over her back, legs, and hands was the final count.  But horrifying though her experience was there were some odd perks to it.  Miss Annie became a bit of a campus legend.  Oftentimes whenever a cat came near she heard other TFAers saying:

"Watch out for those, I heard some girl got fleas!"

"Really?  Fleas?  Ewwww!"

Once Annie even warned a girl she saw petting them:

"Careful, those things can give you fleas."

"Oh yeah," giggled the girl, "I heard that happened to someone.  How awful must that suck?"

"Pretty bad I bet," said Annie, a droll smirk on her face . . . It's nice to have a sense of humor.

That, in fact, is the moral of this tale.  Always keep your sense of humor.  It helps even the darkest stories become funny growth opportunities.  And legends you can use to scare off future suitors (hah!) with.  

Finally, I present to you the house seal Annie designed to commemorate this legend:

Cat with mustache.  What more need be said.

And so there we go.  Instead of telling you what's actually going on in my life I'll send you some horrifying tales . . . but at least it's something!

Capriciously yours, 

Annie