October 30, 2008
 
bully for me

Still trying to scrounge some space to write. I really should be marking right now, but I have a lot of practice making that particular nagging voice shut up. Last night I stayed home from knit night because Mason was sick and it gave me an excellent reason to hang out in my house for a change. Still didn't get my laundry folded, but what's another day to the scuttly things that burrow into the layers of clean sheets heaped haphazardly in my basement? I could probably hang the sheets outside my house for a cheap Hallowe'en decoration, considering all the leggy little bugs that like to call my basement home and which are probably enjoying my laundry as we speak.

We have a few decorations up, a product of Blake's sporadic desire to "do crafts." He lost interest in the last session when I refused to draw and cut out a skeleton for him, and made him participate by drawing a face on a minimalist skull. There's also a tissue paper ghost hanging from my light that got a lot spookier when it rained and his inky eyes ran down his face. Oooh! Damp.

I'm still trying to figure out what to be tomorrow. I was going to cheese out and be a "witch" or a "vampire" (in other words, I was going to put on my Garden clothes and pretend I put some effort into it), but I'm thinking about being a zombie librarian. I have a houndstooth skirt, glasses and blouses to wear, and I can do the makeup fairly easily as smearing it around plays to my strengths. This time I'm getting some blood, though. I won't have the option of mashing my face up against a bistro window, rubbing some other zombie's bloody handprint into my cheeks. Well, I might have the option, but I sure as hell can't count on it.

I was also thinking about being an ex-con, but Mason might be using those props instead. I'm trying to convince him to be a drone bee, an unshaven male kicked out of the hive as soon as winter comes as he's fulfilled his life's purpose. He thinks that might be a little "high concept." He may be right...but it would definitely be funny. And I have a thing about making everyone dress up as a bee.

Work has been hard lately, as a student began bullying me after I returned some tests. It took me days to fully accept that this wasn't a straightforward case of intimidation or ordinary antisocial behaviour. She isolates me, she refuses to consider logical solutions, she refuses to deal with anyone other than me, she uses anger to intimidate. I hate being in this position, but I'm very glad that I happen to work in a field that makes an active study of bullying and pays at lease lip-service to the idea that it can be dealt with in a way that doesn't re-victimize the target. We'll see.

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Don't make me send out the Blake. He doesn't listen to *anyone.*