You fo' Real?

Today is one of many where I feel like I have no idea what the h-e-double-hockey-sticks I'm doing. Ninety-percent of my students just plain don't do their homework. (40% do barely anything in class!) They have Fs and it doesn't seem to phaze them. I don't really understand English grammar and punctuation, much less know how to explain it to 11-16 year-olds who speak a different language entirely. I am making it up as I go along.

Today's highlights: -Girl who put her head down and went to sleep instead of taking a test. The third time I go over there to try to get her up and she cries indignantly, "Stop shakin' me!"
-English club meeting. Some of the most Hermione-Granger-esque 6th, 7th and 8th graders made recruiting posters because they REALLY want to make a yearbook and have more faith than I do sometimes that we can do it- even though we don't have any money for it.
-Seeing a few excited faces as we read an interview from a book authored by a high school girl from New Orleans.
-A miniature nap after school.

And oh my goodness junior high flatulence. My roomate says she just carries around an air freshener while her students are writing in their journals.

Sometimes I can't believe this is my life.