This week finished up one of the art camps that I've been teaching at-Glory, Hallelujah! It has dragged on but I still thought I had a good bit of summer left until CB reminded me that September is less than two months away.
Most of the projects I planned for this group of kids were not that great, seeing as how I didn't make it through the student teaching part of MAT and I always underestimate with older kids and overestimate with younger ones. However, to give myself some credit, the kids didn't listen to anything I said during the whole camp. I was the Charlie Brown teacher. Woanh woanh woanh. But it didn't really matter what they did because it turns out that the whole camp is more of a babysitting service anyway. So I tried to make sure they didn't kill each other, or that I didn't kill them (which would have been more likely). One project that I thought would be fun to at least experiment with was clay. I don't have too much knowledge of clay but I thought, how hard could it be? I once heard an art teacher say that they love the idea of teaching clay but it was always disastrous. Well, they were right.
The kids did not listen to me when I told them how to scratch and score. Handles were falling off of mugs left and right. They didn't listen to me when I told them how important it was to add air holes to thick pieces because it will bust if you don't. The kids made some desserts (pies, ice cream, etc) with the clay. When I opened the kiln after the pieces had been fired, I just had to laugh. Ice cream had combusted all over other shelves. Pies had been demolished. I wish I could have been inside that kiln to hear and see the explosion of clay that occurred. It may be cruel, but I didn't get upset or even care at all when I told the kids some pieces had broken and then heard them moan and raise their eyebrows, in hopes that it wasn't theirs. Maybe next time they'll listen.
Aside from making desserts, bowls, and mugs out of clay, the middle school kids got to make whistles. I had not made one before but I saw enough of them online to think that I could do it. It was also a good time saver while everyone else was finishing their desserts. The whole time they were working on the whistles I thought of two things: 1) I hope these things work. 2) If they don't work, I hope they blow up in the kiln so I won't have to deal with these little assholes telling me that they don't work and basically confronting what a sucky teacher I am.
And guess what? Not a single whistle blew up, and not a single whistle works.
To make a short story long, and to get to the point of this post, I had to deliver the ceramics to and from the camp center and the art building up town. I've been extremely organized during this camp by keeping boxes around to load and contain supplies. I must have had seven boxes of ceramics that I had to load and unload. One day I made some of my unruly older boys help put boxes in my car and clean the room, thinking it would be a punishment. Instead, they were looking in my car, trying to see remnants of my life outside of camp, and begging me to let them vacuum.
Three women at the front desk of the camp center watched me try to wiggle a hand free from holding the boxes to open the door, then use my hip to push it all the way open so I could scurry out, then try to juggle it on my knee again to open my car gate. All the while they stared at me and never even offered to open the door.
At the arts building, a guy that looked about my age was on his cell phone not forty feet away from me and silently watched as I did the whole load/unload charade again.
What is wrong with people?
Boxes have been making me anxious ever since I moved all of my small boxes of belongings in to a rather large, cube box that is a storage unit. I might have mentioned that that is where all of my belongings are. Every time I need something out of there I open it up and either cry or make myself take deep breaths. It's not just that I feel like a stage five hoarder, or that I cannot get to my tangible things; it's what the boxes represent.
Whenever the door goes up, it's as if the inside of the unit screams at me,making my hair flow back cartoon-like. It's as if it is children screaming at a mother who abandoned them, saying, "When are you going to get it together??? You need your own place! How old are you again?? You put so much value and money in to us and now you're neglecting us!" Or something very dramatic like that with some humorous imagery reinforcing it.
Both box situations, the lack of another set of hands and the storing away of my belongings, seem to represent help. I need help physically (though most of the time I don't ask for it). I need help standing on my own two feet, which is why I live with Auntie. I know the day will come when I can have my independence back, when the storage unit key will be turned in and my boxes will be at peace with me. And I will momentarily think that means that I've "got it together," at least for a little while.
Until then, I'm purging the boxes in my room and clearing out some space. The future will be open.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2_2lGkEU4Xs
(This is the background song that plays when shuffling boxes)
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