Mudra (Sign/Seal)

I had been hoping that if I failed to contact anyone from my new (middle) school, they would forget that they had hired me to teach there and just go on paying me without expecting me to show up. I think my years in Hazelwood set me up with false expectations about how payroll works. 

Alas, I received a phone call (people still make such things!), asking which day I was available to come in.

The woman whose room I'm moving into is just moving to the gym to be a PE teacher. She never introduced herself, just asked what I was doing there and why. Then told me I was doing it wrong. Not off to a great start.

The man I report to has a beard that's half wavy, half straight, and exceedingly long. He's apparently quite brilliant but it's hard to tell because he constantly starts slow-moving sentences and then leaves them trailing off in the middle so he can start new ones. The entire time I was meeting with him, I kept envisioning myself grabbing the beard and whacking the whole thing off! I felt as mad as the narrator in The Tell-Tale Heart: 

I think it was his eye! yes, it was this! One of his eyes resembled that of a vulture — a pale blue eye, with a film over it. Whenever it fell upon me, my blood ran cold; and so by degrees — very gradually — I made up my mind to take the life of the old man, and thus rid myself of the eye forever.

Let me try:

I think it was his beard! yes, it was this! Part of his beard resembled that of a different man - long and wavy, with the other half straight. Whenever he stroked it, my blood ran cold; and so all at once -- as soon as we'd met -- I made up my mind to shear the hair off the old man, and thus rid myself of the beard forever!!

Not gonna' lie, I'm pretty impressed with myself. But hopefully, I can refrain from killing the old man AND whacking his beard off, as that would be a very bad start to a new job.

The only person I have connected with at the new school is Randy, the thousand-year-old custodian who is salty as fkkk. I adore Randy already, even if he does threaten to charge me for the storage of 30 boxes of books. Maybe Randy and I can eat our lunches together in the janitor's closet and avoid everyone else.

It's the end of a one-year era!

It's not bittersweet to leave North. It's just bitter, although today was easier than yesterday, when they "honored" the teachers leaving. Today, I had to have an exit conversation with my principal before being allowed to sign out. It went like this:

Him: Are you excited about going to XYZ Middle School next year?

Me: Is that a joke?

Him: What? No, it's a real question.

Me: Oh. Um. (fidgets and doesn't reply). Thank you for giving me the opportunity to work here. I'm really glad I got to experience it.

On a tangentially-related note, I've been wondering a lot about signs lately. In Sanskrit, the word mudra means "sign" or "seal." There are different mudras or hand signs that are associated with different energies.

For example, this is garuda mudra:

Garuda means "eagle" and like an eagle, this hand sign is meant to give practitioners the energy and singular focus of the eagle. The thumb is associated with agni or fire, so by crossing the two thumbs, you are channeling the energy and power of both fires. (Fun fact: did you know they can see like 2 miles to hunt??)

One of my favorite hand signs is kashyapa mudra. It looks like this:

All the fingers are sealed to the palm in this sign instead of open and outstretched as in a lot of the other ones. That's because kashyapa mudra is meant to seal the energy inside the body so that negative energy can't get in. This is the mudra I practiced during hallway duty this year so the Negative Nelly next to me couldn't get into my head.

I don't know if mudras actually work, but maybe they fall into that category of things that are effective if you think they are effective.

I've been thinking a lot about signs lately. Is there really power in them, or are signs something that we create for ourselves merely because we are looking for them? I asked a friend and he said this:

"[Signs] are useful for helping us make decisions. They can reveal how you truly feel or help you out of paralysis."

Then he asked if I got a sign. It depends on whether or not you'd call this a sign:

I was looking at the international job board a few days ago. Hours before, a school in Zagreb posted a search for a teacher fitting the following requirements:

- someone certified to teach middle school

- someone also certified to teach high school

- someone who can teach social studies

- but also someone who can teach English

I am certified in all of those things, plus I am also certified in international education. Also, the school is an American school in Croatia. Also, it is 10 minutes from one of the hostels where I'll be staying.

Is it a sign?

Maybe YES. But really, the only reason the sign appeared was because my obvious and vociferous malcontent about moving to XYZ Middle School propelled me to search the international job boards even though I already have a job. In other words, That sign would not have materialized for me if I weren't looking for it.

Maybe the looking for it is the real indication that I'm not meant to be at XYZ. The fact that I'm dreading XYZ is the real indication. The fact that I can't stop talking about how depressed I am to go there, even though I should be jumping with joy that I found a job.

Anyway, I applied at the international school. Because what if signs are real?

But then these things happened and maybe these are signs, too:

* I learned that Terry's dad was shot and killed by a police officer. That's why I haven't seem him in class. The principal told me Terry was supposed to come back to school today (last day) to say goodbye to a couple of his favorites but he never showed.

* Rowan, also 16, could not continue to sleep outside a Papa John's, so he found a way to rent his own apartment. He walked an hour and a half to school to see me. He brought Smarties because he ate all of mine (without permission) over the course of 1st semester. We sat and ate Smarties together for lunch. 

This school is full of Terrys and Rowans. The only way to reach them is to actually be here, and the only way to be here is to wait for another opening and reapply.

I'm never very confident in my abilities. To be frank, I don't feel like I "performed" well enough this year to know I'd be rehired. I mean, I don't know how administrators think! Maybe I was too awkward. Maybe I wrote too many cell phone referrals. Maybe I pissed off too many seniors who plagiarized essays. IDK.

But as I said, I was required to do an end-of-year fireside chat with the head principal. Apparently my EOC scores were the highest in the building for non-honors classes. 72% of my students scored Proficient or Advanced, despite my never having taught this grade or material before. If you knew this bunch of kids, this is shocking. It made me feel like maybe I didn't completely fkk everything up. 

If you're looking for signs, you'll find them.

Here's what I know:

I don't want to teach at XYZ School. But for better or for worse, that's what I have to do to stay in the district and maybe keep up with Terry and Rowan and Ivan and the rest.

Ivan explains he can't help me move boxes...

This year was hard as fkkk. I felt defeated all the time, first by the sheer enormity of work, then by the cell phones, by my failure to keep my position, by the AI essays.

But if I don't stick it out, I'll never know what was waiting on the other side. I didn't teach high school for long enough to know if I'd actually like it.

So I guess I'll get back from the Balkans and I'll spend the summer studying to pass the Speech & Theater test. Word on the streets is that a teacher is retiring soon.

Maybe as long as I have something to work toward, I won't completely melt down at XYZ Middle School. If I'm looking for a sign to stay, maybe the fact that the international school didn't respond to my resume is as good as it gets.