I really cannot believe that I only have three more weeks of student teaching at my crazy placement in the Lower East Side. I only say crazy because it's been such a ride. Unpredictable, sometimes depressing, many times hilarious. And only three weeks until I'm out of there - believe it or not, I'm feeling sad about it.
I've said many times on this blog that student teaching is really difficult. It's emotional and it can strip you of your confidence. But then, after a while, you adjust as well do in almost any situation. Now it just feels like I work there and my students have expressed sadness about my leaving. Of course, I haven't made connections with every single kid, but the ones I have connected with, I'm really going to miss.
Everyone around NYU is prepping for finals and doing final projects. I recently turned in a huge writing project for my expository writing class. It was a multi-genre project about the back-stories surrounding my tattoos. I wrote poems, a movie review, stories and a play. It was a difficult project to finish because I don't normally consider myself a writer of fiction. However, I have no shame, and I've included a poem that I wrote about my grandmother below. The tattoo that corresponds with the poem is shown underneath. Enjoy!
Hello House
Hello, house,
She would always say
When we walked in through
The three doors
On our way into the kitchen –
The door to the garage,
Then the big wooden one
And finally the screened.
Hello house!
Every single time, and
When I was young,
I would groan with embarrassment
When she greeted her own house
As if it could hear her,
As if it could talk back.
One day I had had enough.
“Why do you always say that?” I demanded.
“Because if these walls could talk,
they would have so much to say.”
My grandmother thought one day
The house might just choose to respond.
In a large, booming and creaky voice,
It would say,
Hello, Robbie! Welcome home.
Sadly, it never did.
And then she was gone.
Someone else lives in that house now.
I wonder if they appreciate it as much as she did.
I wonder if it misses her greeting,
And if in the dead of night
Or at the birth of a new day
It whispers to its brick-thick self,
Hello house.
