March 4, 2013

• A big F you to Mrs. Alexandra

  Yeah, I almost used the whole F word right now, but then didn't.

   Mrs. Alexandra was my eighth grade home Ec. teacher and also my home room teacher, which if I remember correctly was in the cafeteria.  Or maybe it was seventh grade, either way, between her and Mr. Panzella the chorus teacher ( who years later was fired due to being found guilty of molesting his daughter), I got a lot of detentions.  But that isn't why I am angry with Mrs. Alexandra some 43 years after seeing her for the last time.  I am angry with her because I am excellent in wood shop class.  

  Have I lost you yet?  I am in wood shop class by proxy because the boys I work with are in woods and I can supervise for three hours or participate.  And while it's true the woods teacher is used to teaching kids with an IQ of 2 and also kids who have autism and other disorders, I think the patronizing tone while I cut wood is purely coincidental. And it's also true I have almost lost a digit or two, and there have been some eye rolling ( even from the teacher that works at Safeway with me), I still think I found my niche.  And yes, one boy continually says my box sucks, I don't know how to sand, and the reason the oil isn't sticking is because I have globs of glue all over it, I still think my box is pretty good.  Evidence of good box ( with artsy blue tint)

  

     Now after seeing this masterpiece you may be wondering what that has to do with Mrs. Alexander and Home EC.  You need to be patient I'm getting to that part.

  I don't remember too much about the cooking part of home EC. except we made lasagna once and it was really good.

  I do remember the sewing part though.  In particular two items.  Pants and a stuffed animal.  My pants were great and I didn't need much material because that was pre development and I looked like I was five and I think I was still in size 6x.  Despite that, the sewing machine and I had issues and unfortunately my pants fell apart in the first wash. The pants were high wasted bell bottoms and made of faux denim. I had enough material left over to make my stuffed animal faux denim too and I thought it was very cool.  I'm not sure that I would have chosen to do an elephant since that is clearly harder than a bear, so I am assuming Mrs.  Alexander forced me to make an elephant. which is very mean when she knew I had issues with the pants.

  I learned sewing on the machine is  kind of like driving and I had some problems with speeding and steering which did not fare well for the faux, jean, elephant.  Anyway, even though I had to unthread so many times it caused rips and even though it was the saddest looking elephant one could imagine, and may have looked like a deformed bear, I fell in love with it.

  I don't remember my grade.  Hopefully Mrs. Alexander saw the effort and at least gave me a c, but I doubt it. She was mean and clearly, I should have been in shop class.

  This was back when women's lib was really at it's peak, but it still scared me and I thought of it as a lesbian takeover and I wanted no part.

  I was comfortable with defined gender roles although I knew I would have to marry money since sewing and cleaning were not among my skill sets. I didn't end up marrying money, I married expunge and now I'm divorced and poor. but I made him lasagna and he liked it a lot and it was not one of the meals, like hamburger helper, that got criticized. And I guess I should thank Mrs. Alexander for that but I'm still too angry.

  Having said that, and even though shop was not an option for girls, I think Mrs. Alexander should have recognized that would have been a class I could shine in.

  Instead she forced me to make a faux, jean elephant, that I fell in love with, knowing it would die and make me feel really bad.  I created the elephant so it was like loosing a child and honestly I am still dealing with the after effects.

  She also did give me a lot of detentions and I now think my mother was in on it because it happened in home room almost daily, and that is where I let my friend Tish help me break two big rules my mother had given me.

  1) no make up

  2) never wear other peoples makeup

  Since rule one was obviously going to be broken, I had to break rule two as well since I didn't have my own make up.

  My mother knew wearing others make up, especially eye makeup, could cause eye problems, since that's when I had such bad eczema inside my arms, my pe. teacher thought I shot herion. ( the scratched rash looked like track marks)

  Anyway, when Tish would be laying on the bright blue eye shadow which would later cause weird, crusty. eye infections, Mrs. Alexander would decide to find reasons to give us detentions.  

  Talking, ( duh talking was necessary because Tish would tell me not to forget to wash it last period because I got caught last time and my mother acted like I had put acid in my eye). Also, it was homeroom, really no talking first thing in the morning of 7th or 8th grade?  Girls?  Unrealistic!

  My mother was very critical of Tish's make up artistry and said the blue eye shadow looked ridiculous.   And it may have, looked ridiculous I mean, since, blue eyeshadow is dumb and I looked like I was five with lots of blue eye shadow and possibly crusty, eye infections

  She also gave me a double detention, I seriously think she made that up with Mr. Panzela who I kind of don't think molested his daughter, but do think was mean to his wife because he was a mean teacher.  She gave me a double detention for chewing gum, while getting my daily makeover from Tish, on the same day Tish and I got back from being suspended for smoking. And really she should have known my mom would freak out and say I had a severe problem with rules, when honestly I just didn't see why chewing gum was bad.

  Ok, Mrs. Alexander, maybe I wouldn't have been great in shop but I definitely should have gotten an A+ on my solo in chorus, which wasn't your fault unless you and Mr. Panzella, and my mom all discussed the eye shadow and thought a good punishment would be to ruin my singing career.

  The point is I am holding a grudge and I am also going to post this on Tish's  facebook wall as a stroll down memory lane.  And I want my mom to apologize about the make up rule, when I read porn and wasn't punished and that seems way worse than blue eye shadow. Even if she was right and I did have allergies and probably shouldn't have worn Tish's cheap ( sorry Tish) blue eye shadow.

  And also, if my dad reads this he should have really intervened and told that school to stop giving detentions for no reason. 

   And yes, I am aware this blog is sort of all over the place and it seems my anger towards Mrs. Alexander is misplaced.  But I have my reasons for writing it and for writing it this way.  And it's probably rude to tell anyone kind enough to read this that it is none of their business why I chose this style and subject, it really isn't any of your business. So...

  Until next time.

  • 1:59 pm
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