Jennifer is a strange and wonderful little girl. She came into my class a few weeks into the schoolyear so she wasn't on my original roster...all her information was scrawled messily on a yellow slip. Whoever wrote her name made the J look a whole lot like a Y. And at that point I was much more motivated and energetic than I am these days, so soon all her books, all the classwide tracking systems, her desk and her mat spot...they all bore the label, "Yennifer." She didn't show up on my attendance sheets until several days later, and somehow, in that interval, the girl became convinced that her name was actually Yennifer. It's at the top of all her classwork, it's at the top of all her homework, it's how she signs out to go to the bathroom, the other kids in the class refer to her as "Yennifer with a Y"... Poor J/Yennifer! I don't know if clearing up the mistake would be more confusing now or not.

Jennifer's job is the Teacher's Assistant. I am now seriously regretting ever coming up with such an ambiguous and potentially-high-responsibility job and almost get rid of it every day. But, as of today, Jennifer is still the Teacher's Assistant. She is always hustling and bustling around the room, straightening tables and organizing books. To my dismay, she has also decided that she is allowed to give Table Points and move people up to Perfect Pink. I gave her a serious talking-to when I realized at lunch that, right before the kids had gone down to the cafeteria, she had gone around the room with a sharpie and labeled things from my sticker container to my easel to every single slate (there are 24) to the pens themselves with "Ms. Powell." I knew she was taking the job of Teacher's Assistant too far, though, when I found, on her desk, on some of the books in the library, in the closet, labeled "Ms. Yennifer."

But she means well. Which is why I find the following stories endearing instead of irritating. Last Thursday, I found a note in the complaint box (see previous entry) from J/Yennifer. It read: "Ms. Powell, my sweater is tickling me." ??? What did she want me to do about it?! Especially since she knew that I don't check the complaint box until after the kids go home for the day! And last Friday, we were working on writing "Small Moment" stories (you look back on your recent life, choose a little episode, zoom in on it and play it like a movie in your mind so you can capture all the details). She got up from her seat (BAD) and came up to me (BAD) to tell me that she couldn't think of anything to write about. "Ms. Powell," she said, "when I close my eyes, all I see are flowers. Everywhere...flowers." I guess there are worse things to see when you close your eyes.

Last couple anecdotes. A. (oh A.) left a note in the complaint box that read: "Ms. Powell, D. stuck her tongue [probably not spelled that way] out at me. She was very very very very very very very very very very bad." A. and I have started a dialogue journal because she is extremely emotional in a distracting way but doens't open up in face-to-face conversations. I hoped that the journal would give her an outlet where she could write about her feelings and really explore them. So far, though, every entry (there have been about 5) has sounded like this: "Ms. Powell, I am so happy. I love you, Ms. Powell. You are nice and beautiful. Ms. Powell, you are so nice. You are so so nice, Ms. Powell. I am very very very very very very happy today, Ms. Powell." And then she refuses to go back to her desk, refuses to get in line, and bursts into tears.