vampyros lesbos

I have a gay transgender vampire in my 2nd period class.

And that is the least of what's happened to me today. Absolutely the least of my worries.

tips

1. For straight teacher/educators who want to support queer teachers/educators: don't tell your kids you're straight. I realize queer-friendly straight role models are important, but it'd be nice if not denying you were gay didn't automatically mean you were.

2. For people who post in women-seeking-women on craigslist: don't mention your last relationship, the eighteen criteria any woman you date absolutely must meet, how lonely you are, or how much craigslist sucks. In fact, don't provide any meta-context for your ad at all: just talk briefly, amusingly, about how cool you are and how you'd like to meet someone for x pleasant, non-threatening activity.

3. For publishers of math textbooks: putting the section on solving equations after you've already been working with equations for 5 sections is dumb.

4. For principals of public schools: I'm probably better than nothing, but not much. I'd take half my current salary for half my current workload, no problem.

5. For my students: if you want to learn some math, you eventually have to do some math problems. That's how it works. You also have to come to class and do your homework. 9th graders, this goes double for you, because even if you've already been in a room where someone talked about it, you didn't learn it then.

6. For myself: if you haven't been hungry for two weeks and have therefore been getting your sustenance mostly from yogurt, fruit, toast-with-peanut-butter, and ice cream, and then suddenly eat a full dinner followed by pizza for lunch the next day even though you're still not hungry, and you're really stressed out and feeling like crying before you have the pizza, you shouldn't be surprised when you get a migraine.

7. For the creators of Algeblocks and the fabulous college professor/7th grade math teacher who gave me a set: you are both incredibly awesome and should know it.

This message, like my lessons, was brought to you by the extraordinary Gardener, who has been lovely to me the last few weeks, and the amazing Mathematician, who has been feeding me dinner and math advice since it all started.

also, Political Schmientist: my classroom still looks much as it did when you left, except someone wrote "ASS" on Lundberg.