Miller's Crossing

Dear Blogger,

I was able to weasel my way into Social Research with the help of Dr. Togunde, and a few exchanges with the registrar.

I spend most of my time at college wanting to take a creative writing class and when I finally get in, I have to back out. How does that happen?

Things at work have been going well. I'm officially friends with one of the eight year old boys, Timothee. He's absolutely hilarious and absolutely adorable. He likes to climb on me when I'm talking to someone else, so I'll often have to shake him off, pick him up, and then put him in a seat.

Although, tiny little things sometimes happen that really get under my skin.

There's a family of four kids, the Adebanjos. Elizabeth being the oldest, then Michael, then Anu, and then Emmanuel. Being the oldest, Elizabeth is generally dependable to do her own thing and not get into trouble, and also, to help out if children start to get out of hand.

Yesterday, Emmanuel did something that I didn't see-- but I did turn around in time to see Elizabeth slap him on the cheek. I told her that she shouldn't slap him like that, she said she does that when he acts up, and I told her to Please don't do that in the classroom, though. (Keep in mind that from 5:20-6, I'm the only adult in the room.)

Like any small child, Emmanuel started crying hysterically. He climbed onto his chair, and then he climbed onto the table. I was able to get him to sit down, but not get off the table. I thought he had calmed down at this point, but then he jumped off the table and started hitting Elizabeth and continued crying liked he had been.

The weird part is that he kind of stopped hitting her, and started half hugging her and half-slapping her sides, but he was still crying although not as hard. I asked her if he was okay and she said that he was. After that, he seemed so exhausted that he just sort of collapsed onto the ground and lay there. I started rubbing his back and telling him to take deep breaths, and asking him if he was okay, he got up and started to run, but I grabbed him, and I told him to keep taking deep breaths. He kept crying, and then it just turned into some strange kind of exhausted self-healing process that no one really can put words on until it's finished.

This seems like it was something that had started at home, got bottled up, repressed (the other two siblings stayed back, and even seemed ambivalent for most of the time, although, they did help to settle Emmanuel down towards the end), and then it all just kind of exploded at once, and then settled into what's kind of like the unease that comes after a bad storm: you know what happened was awful, you just don't want to do about anything.

It was really the only time at work that I was at a complete loss for what to do. I asked Elizabeth to just take them home, as it was a little before six o'clock. Mostly I was afraid of what Emmanuel was capable of doing-- to himself and to anyone else who might have gotten in his way. It was kind of like seeing all of his repressed energy and anger and anything else that he might have inside of him blow out of him at once, and it just kept coming and coming and was somewhere between rage and terror, but still healing for him in some way.

Also, being the only adult, and being in an environment that isn't very well equipped for any sort of disaster/emergency (we don't have any Band-Aids in the classroom!), what was I supposed to do if anyone had gotten seriously hurt? It's a lot of responsibility that I don't know if I'm prepared for.

There were twelve other kids standing there, watching us or not watching us (I can't remember), and as all of my energy was focused on this one kid for a good ten/fifteen minutes, they could have done some awful things. This made me realize on the ride home, that for the first time since I've worked there, I had absolutely no control over the classroom. Children are capable of terrifying things, in terrifying moments.

But don't you think control is entirely a state of mind?

Let's think about that for a while...

Have A Good One,

Steve