I Went Back to School Today

Upon returning to work and getting professionally developed for 6 hours, I learned a few things.

1. There are some people in the world that you could give a million dollars to and they would complain about the bills being folded the wrong way. They could win a car and they would want a different color. There are some people in this world who really thrive on being unhappy. We should not have to be around these people. They're like happiness vacuums.

2. Professional adults should not have to play get to know you activities that involve running. It's just silly and counterproductive. Especially when those people are diving into chairs a la Musical Chairs and pushing and shoving. And especially when there are questions about thongs. My school remains a mystery to me. Why can't we just shake hands and then go in our classrooms and work?

3. Men care nothing about decorating classrooms. I think there's something on the Y chromosome that prevents any urge to make a room look welcoming and comfortable. (We still have no progress on the room set up and we are officially at D-Day minus 5. My blood pressure is escalating.)

4. Adult parents can throw tantrums that are a pretty good imitation of a child's if their child is mistakenly put on a teacher's list other than the one they requested. It's not pretty.

5. Fourth graders have very poor phone skills. We had to call all of our students today and tell them that they were in our class. 12 of my 18 conversations went like this:

Me: Hi! I wanted to tell you that you're going to be in my class this year!

Kid: Uh huh.

Me: Welcome to 4th grade!

Kid: Yeah.

Me: I hope to see you at Meet the Teacher in a couple of days!

Kid: Bye.

Very deep, those nine year olds. At least that's done and over with. Now I can get on to real business. Except for I have about 12 more hours of being professionally developed standing in my way of actually getting ready for the school year. Bygones.