It ain't just apples and chalkdust anymore, folks.

Since i became a NYC public school teacher:

1. I am more exhausted than I have ever been in my life.

2. I have much more respect for all public school teachers, especially my mother.

3. I have strained my vocal chords to their very limits.

4. I get up every day at 5:30.

5. I rarely get more than 5 hours of sleep a night.

6. I have used "word" to mean the affirmative.

7. I have been told on several occasions that "I be beastin'."

8. I realize that talking about standards and soft bigotry and institutional failure does nothing. At the end of the day, most of my kids still cannot do what most white kids can do by 3rd grade.

9. I have become a proponent for trade school instead of the "Unless you're going to college, this is pretty useless to you" approach.

10. I hate the system. I hate the system that puts a girl in my class who cannot speak English but is not considered ESL because her first language is not Spanish, it's French. I hate the system that thinks that the solution to bad teaching is forcing students to take huge tests, then retake the class if they fail. I hate the system that will fire me if I do not put an "aim" on the board each day but lets hundreds of kids slip through the cracks.

11. When I come home at night, I want to cry. Often I do. It's not for any particular reason or for any reason at all.

12. I cannot watch TV dramas anymore. Law and Order isn't as cool when the 16-year-old that was shot on TV could be the same kid in my class.

13. I chastise kids in public. "Why are you hanging out on this street corner? Shouldn't you be on your way home, or doing schoolwork?"

14. I get angrier at young kids who misbehave in public. If I can quiet a class of 34 rowdy 14-year-olds in an 85 degree room to learn the scientific method, you should be able to quiet one 5-year-old that came out of your own body.

15. I hate copiers, and printers, and most technology.

16. My lunch is a diet coke. Maybe also a breakfast bar, but usually just the diet coke.

17. I hate the fact that my kids have to get to class 30 minutes earlier than kids at other schools, just to get through security.

18. I have very little respect for the program I'm in. It's like we spent 9 weeks learning about the physics of the backstroke, then were dumped into the ocean and told to swim 2 miles to shore.

Will I make it through the end of my program (2-3 years)? Maybe.

Will I make it to the end of this year? Maybe.

Will I make it to the end of this week? Maybe.

All I know is that I didn't quit today, and I'm planning on going in tomorrow.

Now I'm going to go cry for no reason. No reason at all.