no editing this time. i'm so angry. why do i always get inspired to write in my journal when i'm pissed off? there's never a day where things go perfectly or something amazing happens and i'm like 'i need to write about that!' it's always the shitty stuff. it's always the stuff that makes me believe that nothing is worthwhile, so it's like i need to write to convince myself otherwise. or it's like an sickness i need to get out.

today's class was terrible. i was leading this activity called a fishbowl, where an inner circle of students has a discussion and an outer circle observes and takes notes. it fell flat on its face. the students collectively sent me an implied and passionate 'fuck you.' it took about ten minutes just to get the desks set up and everyone settled in the right spots, they were throwing the papers i was passing around, they were sleeping, they were making anti-gay jokes. that was before the discussion even started. no one wanted to participate, i was frazzled and pissed off, i was doing all i could to keep from popping, and i had to somehow lead a discussion. one of them said, 'ooh, you're getting angry, aren't you mr. borrelli?' i would have liked to answer her with a fist to the jaw. at one point toward the end of the discussion, after everything else, a spider dropped down from the ceiling causing a few kids to swipe at it and a few others to shriek and back away, and all i was thinking: a fucking spider? are you serious? a fucking spider dropping from the ceiling. why would that possibly happen right now!

today scares me. it's one thing to have a bad day in class, because you can always give kids the benefit of the doubt. if they turn off, it's usually--as i'm sure it was today--poor planning on the part of the teacher. but today was different. today was the first time i've seen them actually be *malicious*. like, usually if they're not engaged or not doing their work they'll at least joke around with me about it. but today was like a concerted effort to wound me. i think some of the normally excellent students in the class--betty, cabe, jonathan--even felt the tension. they hardly spoke.

and, look, i know i'm supposed to use this to reflect on what i did wrong and how i'll do it differently next time, but give me a fucking break. today was an example of pure spite. our room, for those 40 minutes, was saturated with hatred, in every silence and every word. i don't take it personally--i just happened to be the one teaching--but it makes me wonder what the fuck else i need to do. right after it happened, i was thinking of all of the things that went wrong and how they could have been avoided--if i had used a different or shorter excerpt, if i had re-numbered the students, if i had given clearer instructions and definite tasks, if we had scaffolded a little more before jumping in--but then part of me thinks, you know what, those students did not want to fucking work. they were turned the fuck off and wanted me to know it. and you know what? i am a human being, not a fucking robot, and this shit affects me. i know exactly what would happen if, say, one of my instructors read this post. they'd say, 'okay--so WHY do you think the students were so determined to show you they were turned off? what do you think their behavior meant?' at which point i would be expelled from the program for punching one of my professors soundly in the face. why were they determined to show me they were turned off? because they see school as inherently boring and prescriptive and are too jaded and apathetic to try and realize that i might not be that way. what did their behavior mean? that i should be taken out and shot for how horrible and un-empathetic a teacher i am (sarcasm).

i wish i could keep writing. i'm going to go play this open mic at club passim right now. i'm sure i'll put on a great show when all i can think about is my class this morning. it'll be the perfect capper to the day if i fuck up a song onstage. i'll probably just laugh and be like 'hey, how about we do a goddam fishbowl instead.'

Apologies to my throngs of readers for not writing in a while. I've been spending my evenings the past week and a half hanging out with Stefanie who, sadly, left yesterday morning.

Sepcial apologies for not finishing my post from last time. I had said I would write about the second thing that happened in class, so I need to take care of that first. It's funny, thought, writing about it nine days later (it happened last Tuesday). At the time I thought it was exciting and meaningful, but I've learned that so much happens in class every day that if I wait, the power of what I was going to write about is immediately replaced by something new.

Last Tuesday I was leading a discussion of the Samurai's Garden, which is about a 19 year old Chinese boy who goes to live in Japan during the Japanese invasion of China in 1937. Anyway, so the book deals a lot with the protagonists feelings of being an outsider. We were talking about this theme, and I was clarifying whether one of the cities at which Stephen, the narrator, stays was in Japan or China. I asked the class, "So Kobe, is that in Japan or China?" This girl named Valerie, who is at the same time one of the brightest and most difficult students in the class, answered:

VALERIE: Why does it matter? They all look the same anyway [Chinese and Japanese people].

ME: Whoa, whoa Tasha--I mean, Valerie. Hang on--

VALERIE: Don't fucking call me that.

(Tasha and Valerie have a history of not liking each other, I found out. They started shouting insults at each other across the room.)

ME: (trying desperately to get things under control) Okay, Valerie, I'm sorry. But see, my mistake illustrates a point. You say that Japanese people and Chinese people all look the same, but I could say that you and Tasha look the same, too. I mean, I could be like, 'you both have dark skin, you both have a similar hairstyle, I can't tell a difference between the two of you."

VALERIE: I don't look like her!

ME: Yeah, well that's my point. So someone might get really mad at you saying that Chinese and Japanese people all look the same.

VALERIE: Whatever.

J.J.: (from the back of the room) I can tell the difference between Chinese and Japanese people!

ME: Thank you, J.J. Also, Valerie, there's a huge cultural difference between China and Japan, and that's really one of the central themes of the book. It's important to understand that there is a difference, and Stephen really feels different as a Chinese person in Japan.

Etc., etc. I felt like it was crucial for me to explain my point to Valerie, if for no other reason than one of the themes of our class and for all the books we read is Identity. Also, several other students had gotten up in arms at Valerie's initial comment--What's the difference?--saying things like, "they're totally different countries!" After the exchange, though, I thought Valerie was pretty pissed at me, and I thought Tasha might have been, too, which sucked considering what had happened the day before with me and Tasha.

It's funny that I'm writing about this today, because I actually had a very nice exchange with Valerie this morning. So far this week Valerie has been a completely different student. Where the first couple weeks she was disruptive and contrary and always looking to rile people up (an she never did her work), this week she has been working hard and acting very pleasant. I think it might be because she found out she was in danger of failing, even though myself and the other teachers have told her repeatedly that she's so smart and if she just does her work she should get an A. It also might be beacuse she's had some long talks with the principal of CHSA, Mr. Myrie, who a lot of the students seem to respect.

Anyway, so this morning, as I was helping J.J. with his writing (which is a whole other blog post itself), Valerie randomly turned around to me and said, smiling, "Capisci?" I answered, "Si, capisco." She asked, "So you speak Italian?" I guess Adam had told her I speak Italian, and she told me she could understand it, so she kept having me say things to her in Italian and she would try to figure out what I was saying. She asked me how to say "my name is." I asked her what languages she spoke at home (French Creole and Spanish) and where her family is from--her mom is from St. Andrews and her dad is from Port Au Prince. We talked for a while about our families and siblings; Amanda joined in, too. It was so calming to just sit and chat with them. Oh, I should mention we were on break, too, so I wasn't distracting them from anything.

Finally, speaking of J.J., the piece of writing he gave me today is fucking *amazing*. I'd like to post it here in my blog, but I think that would be betraying his trust. I'll ask him tomorrow if I can share it.

I'm going home now to practice guitar and keep reading Harry Potter. My first guitar lesson was good. The stuff I'm working on--major chord shapes and major, minor, diminished, and augmented triads--is deceptively hard. It's so exciting to be taking lessons again, putting theory behind what I've been doing the last few years. I think I might go play at an open mic at Club Passim--this cozy, laid back folk club in Harvard Square--next Tuesday.

I'm so excited about Harry Potter. Everyone says this book is awesome. I should call Brianna and see how she's doing with it.

Man, the last couple of days at CRLS have been tumultuous. On the one hand, there have been some really awesome things going on: J.J. finally turning in a writing assignment and participating in discussions (yes!), Jonathan showing his sparkling intelligence, Betty showing what a rock star she is, Cabe's *awesome* poem "The Spooky Man," Cindy showing how good of a writer she is.

On the other hand, though, both yesterday and today something happened that really affected me and troubled me afterward.

Yesterday, at the end of class, everyone was supposed to be doing silent reading from the novel we're starting, "The Samurai's Garden," by Gail Tsukiyama. I noticed that Tasha was talking with Jenny and Amanda, so I went over to the three of them and told them they needed to be silent and do their reading. Tasha told me she couldn't read in class, so I said that's fine, but you still need to be silent so that other people can read, so just put your head down or something. Tasha did this, but then after a minute I remembered how Tasha had been asking me questions abuot a poem of hers I'd assessed, so I went back over to her and suggested that she try to re-work the poem if she wanted.

She opened her binder to the poem and looked at the rubric for my comments. The exchange went something like this:

TASHA: Why did you change my grade on this part ["descriptive language"] from a B to a C?

ME: Well, at first when I read your poem I thought there were some really strong parts, but then I noticed that Jessica had a lot of the same language and images in her poem [Jessica and Tasha always sit together]. And, like, for example, your simile, "She's like a doorknob because everyone gets a turn," I've heard that before, and it was also in Jessica's poem, so I thought it was kind of cliche. We're trying to push you to come up with your own similes.

TASHA: Well I didn't get it from anybody.

ME: Well, I'm just saying I've heard it before, and it was in Jessica's poem, so that makes it less powerful.

TASHA: Yeah, but, I mean....

ME: Well, yeah, what do you think. I mean, you can definitely disagree with me.

TASHA: Well, I don't know. Whatever. It's not that bad of a grade.

ME: No, but I want you to tell me if you think I'm wrong.

TASHA: Well I'm trying, but you're not listening.

ME: [dumbfounded] Okay... I'm sorry. But then you need to keep talking.

TASHA: [Silence]

That was pretty much it. Man, if there's one thing I was not ready to hear it was "you're not listening to me." That hit hard. I wanted to snag Tasha and talk to her after class, but I didn't. I don't know what I would have said. It particularly hurt because it was Tasha, too. She's very quietly shown that she wants to succeed, but I think she might still be skeptical of us as teachers. And I've made it a point to push her and take an interest in her, cause she is really smart, and she just seems timid for some reason. She lacks self-confidence in the classroom; she doesn't know how to push back. Also, she was the first one to bring up race last week in class when we were talking about people getting treated differently if they're different. Tasha is black, and when Mr. Andrews was asking about examples of people getting less respect because they're different, she kind of sheepishly offered, "Black people." I wonder if this a really important issue for her in school, and if so, I wonder how she feels about four out of the five teachers in our group being white.

Okay, that took kind of a while to write. I need to go grab dinner and then go to my first guitar lesson. I'm taking lessons with this instructor from Berklee College of Music, Chris Buono. He seems like a cool guy who knows his stuff, and I'm super stoked to be taking lessons again. I'm looking forward to playing some open mics and trying to get shows in the area.

I'll write about the second of my classroom experiences (the one that happened today) later tonight.

Independence

I should just state the fact that, though I'm devoted to this blog, it's going to be hard for me to write in it very often. I think acknowledging this will take some of the pressure off me, and I'll look at this blog more as an outlet when I really want to write than an hour-by-hour account of the little details of my day.

I went in to Boston tonight to see the fireworks. I love fireworks!! My favorites were the huge gold ones that streamed down and looked like weeping willows or giant chandeliers. I also liked the smiley face ones, especially when they were upside down or at a weird angle.

Joanna, Angela, Natalia and I started having this discussion right before the fireworks about cheating (on significant others). It wasn't a very interesting, or even long, conversation, but it sticks with me for some reason. I think it's because Joanna seemed really invested in it and kept being really candid with us--she described herself as "clingy"--which was strange for me because I don't even know her that well. I've hardly talked to her. Natalia said that she'd been cheated on, which was sad, because I remember the part in her Boy/Girl Story where she talked about a guy making her feel weak and typical. But Natalia seems like a really strong person, I always think.

Adam and I walked back home, and then Adam closed the door to his room and started talking to Kelly on the phone. Adam always has nighttime conversations with Kelly, and he always does it in this hurried, hushed voice because I think he doesn't want me to hear or something. Every time they get off the phone--at any time of day--he always says "I love you" in the same quick, mumbled way, like it's a secret. And it makes me sad, because I don't know why Adam would think he needs to be ashamed about that in front of me.

It also makes me jealous and angry, because I never get to have those kinds of conversations with Stefanie. I remember how Yin and I would have these long, expansive conversations that would last for hours and end with one of us literally falling asleep into the phone. Every time I call Stef I feel like she's just so bored or restless or annoyed. I felt bad for a few days earlier this week, like really guilty, because I was blaming myself that Stef was detached. I was blaming myself for getting too caught up in things here and not being present in her life. But now I realize that I'm always ready to give Stef as much of me as she'll take, but a lot of times she doesn't seem to care. A lot of times I feel intimidated by her, so I hold back and don't let her know how I'm feeling. I think for some reason I get these bullshit ideas about how I have to be a man and not let my emotions take over, or how I can't seem week because she doesn't like to talk about feelings, and I hate that. Or sometimes I'll take a risk and just tell her how much I love her and how much I miss her, or how I'm sorry that I've been undervaluing our relationship, but I'm mostly just met with silence or dismissal. And this is also reflected in the way Stef refuses to tell me any time she's upset. Maybe this is my version of being clingy--feeling like I want to open up to Stef--but I don't think so. And I don't think I have anything to be ashamed of. I'm not especially needy. I don't think I should have to keep subjugating my feelings just because Stef doesn't like to deal with those things.

I understand it in a different way now. When Adam talks to Kelly, he closes the door and practically whispers because that conversation is their secret, and maybe it's embarassing because Adam is letting out a part of himself that only Kelly gets to keep. When I talk to Stef it doesn't matter if anyone else is listening because I would never say anything risky or secret. I feel kind of passive-aggressive posting this in my blog, because I know Stef is going to read it, but it's all things I was going to say to her anyway. I was going to wait until she was here, but I needed to get this off my chest. I don't know why, but I just got really fucking angry tonight.