This week will be remembered for its wide variation of emotions. Having been only two weeks after I graduated college, I landed a job--a very unboring one. I work at an elementary school in an after school program called Child Care. From 2 til 6 I supervise about 20 kids between the ages of 5-12. This job has very little to do with my major which is not a surprise because my major was English Literature. However, the job has given me a lot of interesting experiences and created a lot of stories. Also, I have learned to respond to "Hey, Mr. Timothy!" Thank God they don't say "Mr. Anderson" because that inspires that joke. You know the one....the one.
Unfortunately, that was the only positive experience I had this past week. Most of the negativity of this week are things that I can't really go into on this blog due to privacy. So, I'll allow you to make something up. If you are not feeling creative or imaginative, I will provide a clip that will serve as a kind of "interpretative dance" to for you to decode the meaning.
Did ya catch it? Good.
The job never has a dull moment which is both a good thing and a bad thing. If you are not paying attention for a second, a child could do something dangerous. It sounds a bit extreme but its totally true. And if you don't believe me, you should take the 10 hours of online training we were all taking that showed us real security camera footage of kids who wondered off somewhere and got crushed by various large objects they thought it would be totally awesome to climb. If that doesn't terrify you, you're better than I. That shit made me wanna quit before I started. By the end of the 10 hour modules, one thing is understood: All kids will be raped, drowned, beaten and killed if you do not pay attention for only a split hair of a second.
On my first day, I tried my hardest to leave a good impression. Oddly enough it was easy. They loved me instantly. The only problem was...the feeling was kinda not mutual. Don't get me wrong, I have a soft spot for kids. I do. It's covered in barbwire but its there. I promise. My problem is that my soft spot for kids is not affected by their cuteness factor or any other adorable qualities, its more motivated by trying to keep them safe, alive and molding their morality. I really, really don't want anything bad to happen to this kids more than I care if they have fun or not... I know that sounds bad, but you try prioritizing "fun" with a bunch of kids varying in socio-economic backgrounds for just one day and see what happens. On the first day, I had already put 3 in time out and called a parent. It was amazing. I was all over that shit. I have absolutely no problem with the kids hating me as long as they are alive, safe and learning, I'm good. But, again, no matter how mean or strict I am, they still like me--which is another issue.
Since the kids like you no matter what, they quote you no matter what. They tell their parents about you no matter what. So, if I mumble "fuck these little assholes" under my breath...
I'll give you a real life example. During Quiet Time a kid thought it would be hilarious if he parodied C & C Music Factory's "Gonna Make You Sweat," by changing the widely recognized lyrics "Everybody Dance Now!" to "Everybody Fart Now." Before I lost the children to fart-crazed chaos, I interrupted the laughter with "No, Nobody farts now." And man, did that back fire. They thought it was even more funny than the initial fart joke. From that point on, they repeated that for the rest of the day
"No, Nobody farts now."
"No, Nobody farts now."
Another funny incident includes someone I like to call "Michael Jackson Kid." When I first met him he introduced himself, grabbed his crotch and made a sound that resembled Michael Jackson. It was "he-hee!" I held my gut in laughter because I thought he was some kind of genius. I mean, if I would have thought of that as a kid--to introduce myself, grab my junk, point vaguely to some direction and say "he-heee"--I would have been proud. However, what I learned about this kid is that he did it ALL the time. He did it when it made that absolute least amount of sense--not that there is a time in which it ever makes sense. MJ Kid did not know what the weather was like so he asked me and then did the crotch grabbing thing with the noise and the point. It had lost its charm. I made him quit.
All in all, it was a damn good week.
Childish Villainy.
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