The Beast: Part 4

It was February of my second year in Hell when conference time came around again. Remember that Write to Learn conference I went to the year before? It was that time again, and I was so looking forward to going since I could enjoy it sans drugs :) Besides, a day away from Hell was ALWAYS welcome at that point. That other teacher and I had all the information, and even had our registration forms copied and had looked over the courses we might want to take.


Just before the registration deadline (we were both procrasinators), I got an e-mail from The Beast, who was in full power. It told me It would like me to go to the W2L conference on Thursday, and that I was to contact some lady at the elementary school (who was also the P-something chairperson) so she could get me signed up.

I went over to Mister English and asked if he'd got the e-mail.

"No. It told me not to go," he answered. He'd been suffering at the hand of The Beast as well and was told by a professional to de-stress. The Beast took this as "He is in a very different place than you English girls, and he doesn't need to be included in anything."

In a way I felt a little relieved. Maybe It had moved on to someone else? I could at least hope. Hope was all I could do.

We discussed the whole thing, and he confided that he'd like to go to the Friday conference that we'd gone to the previous year. I was in agreement. The Thursday conference was a day-long deal with the key-note for K-12, while Friday was lined with thirty minute break-away sessions with different speakers specific to age groups.

He asked if he and I could go Friday and was given the run-around. We even wondered if I could go BOTH days.

Finally the P-Something lady told him that one of us girls could go with him on Friday if we wanted to. Yay! I immediately e-mailed the Beast and asked if Mister English and I could go Friday.

"No. You need to go with the group." (I do not exaggerate these e-mails. I still have hard-copies)

When Mister English found out he was on his own I think he opted out completely. I got in touch with the P-Something lady and arranged to ride the school van to the conference since I was without a vehicle at that time.

I arrived at the elementary school on time, and I sat through the day's worth of K-12 information. Some of it was good info, some of it was way lame. We had to get partners and make bookmarks and engage the elementary teachers, which is part of why I didn't teach elementary.

The P-Something lady kept making comments to me about, "See isn't this nice?" or "This isn't so bad, is it?" which I thought were small-talk at the time, but I was wrong. I had been painted as a belligerent, defiant bitch who wanted anything but to go to that conference. If you know me in real life, especially in a professional setting, you know that I'm obediant and submissive.

Fast-forward to board meeting time. I was in the middle of a three ring circus you'll learn about later, and was in constant communication with a board member. As he was going through my file of "documentation" one day, he stopped at my description of the conference, and the e-mails that accompanied it (included were e-mails between myself and P-Something lady).

"Whoa, whoa, wait a minute. Are you telling me you WENT to the W2L conference?"

"Of course," I said, perplexed. He continued scanning the documents.

"I see you made arrangements to ride the school van. Did you do that?"

"Yeah," I said, still confused. Then things started to click. "Wait. WHY?!"

"We were told at the last board meeting that you refused to go to this conference," he said, shaking his head, looking over my registration form, and all the e-mails referring to said conference.

"There are fifteen elementary teachers who can verify I was on that bus," I told him, "and I have all my literature from the workshop."

He was dumbfounded, and frankly so was I. The Beast had told the board I flat-out refused to go to a conference I had been to not once, but TWICE. It had almost got away with it, in fact. And to this day, I have no idea what other monstrosities were fabricated and told about me in those closed-door meetings.

Sadly, that was NOT the end of it...


Are you just starting The Beast Saga? You can read back-story here:
Part 1
Part 2
Part 3