dear students

yes. i know it must be odd to get a letter from your teacher as she is out sick today. yesterday, many of you pointed out that i looked "awful" and that i needed to "get some sleep." several of you wondered out loud why didn't i "just stay home?" well. i have taken your advice today. thanks for the sweet words of encouragement (?) yesterday.

and i know a few of you saw me running around the halls this morning and are probably confused as to why i was up at school on a sick day. i have yet to figure that out myself. did i really need to be there to usher my WRAP kids into their yearbook photo? nah. jb had that under control. was it really important that my 4th period's homecoming poster got hung up today? nah. we all know it ain't gonna win. and honestly, do you really think i am going to grade the big bag of your work that i loaded up and brought home with me? ha. laugh with me here, because we know that is definitely NOT gonna happen. so why was i there?

it wasn't really the brightest decision on my part, especially since it meant that i got to meet the substitute. yes. you've all met him by now, too, i am sure. so you no doubt understand why it was all i could do, after a 2 minute conversation with him, to restrain myself from telling him (with the faint and croaky voice i can squeak out), "you know what? i'll just stay." i am sure you have wondered to yourselves by this point, why someone who hardly speaks english*, let alone reads it, felt that the best place they are most qualified to serve the community is in an 8th grade ENGLISH classroom. with EIGHTH GRADERS. who, if you are quite honest with your adolescent selves, are not the easiest group of students to wrangle. and that's coming from someone has spent 8 years of her life with your kind and has learned to keep the panic and terror out of her eyes when conversing with you. something your dear sub has not yet mastered, which means you have probably quickly found a way to torture him and scar/scare him for life.

so there isn't really a point to this letter. it's not like i can control what happens in my classroom today. instead i just have to hope that the majority of you step up and show compassion to this man (and your sick and obsessing teacher trapped at home) and refuse to allow your classmates to take advantage of him. if anything, just please, keep the floor clean.

thanks. i'll see you monday.
-miss h

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*i say this as someone who has an extremely liberal stance when it comes to english as our national language. i'm normally not one to say, "why can't you just speak our language?" but let's just say, three days of the nyquil diet has left my patience very raw. and yall. i leave things color-coded for subs. he didn't understand the color-codes!