Okay, that's it!

I actually walked out of the teacher's lounge today. Scooped up my container of fresh pineapple that my husband had so kindly prepared for me this morning, and walked out, back up the stairs to the library. Did not slam door. Did not cry. I'm 40. Too old for that. But old enough to have learned that I don't have to put up with people scapegoating me. Okay, so I don't have to put up with six hours of 25-plus failing and constantly chattering children, F- ing their papers and worksheets and such, calling up parents and the round of NCLB tests. But I have my job, I do it best I can, and pretty well, and just 'cause I'm not on their grade-level team doesn't mean they should take their frustration out on me, the librarian.

Anyway, now that I've been at this school for almost two years, I should realize that many of my pleasant colleagues scatter to the winds at their lunch period--a couple days ago, for example, L invited me to her secret lunch hangout--"Now that the weather's good I'll show you where I escape for lunch." It was the pavilion in front of the university building a block away. How lovely lunch was, sitting with L outdoors, away from the gossip crowd. In any case, I'm going to try to schedule most of my lunch periods fourth period, when the kindergarten and first grade teachers have lunch. I enjoy their company. The other periods are dominated by the cliques. Who said that school cliques end at Grade 12. Some of the teachers are just as mean! We librarians, of course, have our own crowd...it's just we're scattered among half a dozen schools. We've started having occasional get-togethers, mostly to kvetch.

My school kvetch issues: idiot supervisor (now demoted back to teacher since they eliminated her position, so it's now a defunct issue); lack of book return (books get piled in crates, very messy), must do my own fundraising to get any money for the library, massive middle school classes...but lately, really, the big one is the teacher scapegoating.

Yet, one of my students asked me today if I like being a librarian. I told him I love it. And I was telling the truth. This makes it a lot easier to just get up and calmly walk away when people who don't know what it takes to be a good librarian start picking on me. I know what I do, I know what I'm good at, and I don't need to defend it.