vindictive

I discovered last week that I have quite the reputation among the high schoolers, more specifically the 12th graders. Seeing as I teach 7th grade, I have little to no interaction with the high school students. In fact, the only contact I have is in the mornings when I pass through the hall to get to my classroom, which is in the next building. As most of you know, I'm not very friendly, especially in the morning, so I usually just mind my own business and head straight to my room. Well, some of the high school boys sit in the hall every morning, so they started asking the other teachers, "Who is that teacher who walks by in the morning, the one who never smiles? She looks so mean." Alison, the science teacher who is also a volunteer here, told one of the boys he should say hi because I'm really nice. He wasn't too sure about that but said he would give it a try. Now Alison likes to joke around, so she warned me ahead of time what was going on, and she told me the kid's name. The next morning when he greeted me, I turned around, smiled and returned the greeting using his name. The look on his face was priceless: a mixture of complete shock and slight terror, like he could have just wet his pants. I thought my reputation was limited to this small group of boys, but I was wrong. My roommate, Amy, came home and told me that I came up in her class as well--12th grade English. They were learning the new vocabulary words, and one of them was vindictive. She explained that it meant vengeful, and one of her students piped up, "Oh, that's Miss Jena!" He even drew a cartoon to illustrate his point.

"I'll keep my eye on you!"

We all had a good laugh over that one. Most of these seniors could easily pass for 25, and they are intimidated by a little blonde girl who looks about 18!

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