![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Stripes of resentment
Apr. 29th, 2014 11:29 pmI just want to say, in retrospect, that I think that was the worst gastro bug I've ever had. It wasn't quite as "oh god kill me now" intensive as some of the 24-hour bugs I've lived through, but three and a half days of painful cramps followed by another four days of barely being able to eat and having almost no energy was...pretty darn horrible. Today's the first day I've really felt like myself, which is good because it's two days in to my temp gig. (And I still can barely eat a few bites at a time before my stomach just goes "nope". My calorie tracker is looking rather distressingly bare.)
The aforementioned gig is going well so far. I'm working with some social-research folks administering surveys to kids in South Side (read: entirely African-American) high schools, which has been an interesting cultural experience and I'll probably have some thoughts on that later. (Suffice it to say that, during a large part of our prep work straightening out rosters yesterday, we wished we had the services of Mr. Garby.) But today's batch of kids was a pretty good, if boisterous, group. As a former English major, this exchange in particular cracked me up:
Teacher: "All right, class. For anyone who's not participating in the survey, I've got a short story you can read and respond to."
Girl in the back: "Ms. Crawford, all your 'short stories' are like two, three pages!"
Teacher, drily: "Welcome to high school."
But the moment where all three of us seriously lost our shit came later. Chicago School District requires active consent on the part of parents before their kids can participate in surveys, and we're raffling off gift cards as a means to motivate the kids to get their permission forms signed and brought in. After one period was done with the survey, my coworker got up in front of the class and drew the name of the winner, at which we heard a scoffing sound from elsewhere in the room. "Pshhh. Why it always gotta be the black guy?"
...Sorry, kid. Racial resentment just doesn't work when you're in a single-race classroom. :D
The aforementioned gig is going well so far. I'm working with some social-research folks administering surveys to kids in South Side (read: entirely African-American) high schools, which has been an interesting cultural experience and I'll probably have some thoughts on that later. (Suffice it to say that, during a large part of our prep work straightening out rosters yesterday, we wished we had the services of Mr. Garby.) But today's batch of kids was a pretty good, if boisterous, group. As a former English major, this exchange in particular cracked me up:
Teacher: "All right, class. For anyone who's not participating in the survey, I've got a short story you can read and respond to."
Girl in the back: "Ms. Crawford, all your 'short stories' are like two, three pages!"
Teacher, drily: "Welcome to high school."
But the moment where all three of us seriously lost our shit came later. Chicago School District requires active consent on the part of parents before their kids can participate in surveys, and we're raffling off gift cards as a means to motivate the kids to get their permission forms signed and brought in. After one period was done with the survey, my coworker got up in front of the class and drew the name of the winner, at which we heard a scoffing sound from elsewhere in the room. "Pshhh. Why it always gotta be the black guy?"
...Sorry, kid. Racial resentment just doesn't work when you're in a single-race classroom. :D
