Highlights of the Week

Sorry for not posting this week, has been very busy. Here are some highlights:
1. Children are rude and have bad manners. I should not be addressed as "Hey!" and I should not be answered with "Huh?". An appropriate question to ask me is not, "How come you haven't changed the board yet? That's from yesterday!" in a rude, demanding tone. Did I mention that all of this was in front of their parents at Open House?
2. We had Open House. I maintain that Open House is the most retarded event ever created. It was invented to torture teachers during their personal evening time. Said torture is exascerbated by administrators who are too afraid of parents to make the standard "It's time to clear out the building; our teachers need to get home to their families" announcement. I'm just sayin'.
3. Said administrators should also not move a notoriously hard to get along with teacher from the favored team - which demanded that she be moved, because you know teachers are in charge of staffing? - onto my team for next year. Also just sayin'.
4. I have sliced my hand open this week and have no idea how. I also bashed into a desk going about 35mph while yelling at speaking to a student to my left and created a large colorful bruise on my thigh. It's dead sexy. I may wear a skirt tomorrow.
5. In the entertainment world, Gus absconded with an individual bowl of Lucky Charms from the pantry while I was getting ready Wednesday morning. He raced around the house while I chased him with my pants, bra, and a towel on my head. I cornered him in the front guest room, slid to a halt on the carpet as he dashed under the bed and got rug burn on my rib. After retrieving the sugary contraband, I stood up shakily and turned around to glance out the window to ensure that there were no witnesses to my display only to see 3 seventh graders staring at me from the bus stop. As I whirled around to pretend I wasn't there, my boob popped out.
So clearly, you can understand why I'm a leeeeetle behind in the blogging. My sincere apologies. I promise to catch up soon. TTFN.

White Trash Nation

I'm reading my students a book that took place during the Texas Revolution. In the story, the father was gored by an ox and subsequently got an infection. The doctor came to the house and lanced the wound and gave Papa whisky. We were talking about why they gave him whisky when Rocky wakes up from his trance at the sound of liquor.
Rocky :Have you ever had whisky? It's good!
Me: [scathing glance]
Rocky: What? It is!

Just One More Chapter.

I think I have a reading problem. It seems that I'll do anything to keep reading. I will battle discomfort, fight sleep, and suffer vision maladies to keep my nose in my book for just "one more chapter."
Some people say that watching TV at night keeps them awake, but for me a book keeps me awake. It's very easy to let myself tune out the TV and drift off to sleep, but a book? A book has my full attention and then some. Here's what happens when I read before bed:
It starts out normally enough. I lay on my back and read with both hands on the book. Everytime I reach the end of a chapter, I think, "oh, just one more chapter won't take that long" and I keep going. Soon, my arms begin to feel weary. While going to bed might be one solution to this problem, I prefer to let my arms take turns: one flops on the bed for a page while the other supports the book, then switch. This works for a bit until sleepiness begins to set in. Clearly, a position shift is in order, so I turn over on my side.
Reading on your side has another set of skills involved. You have to rotate the book every page so that the page you are reading will turn to face you. This isn't bad if you're in the middle of the book. If you're at the beginning or end, you must lay on the side that allows the fat, heavy part of the book to rest on the bed while you are reading the opposite page to avoid having to support the heavy part yourself.
Now, I have spent approximately 26 years developing these techniques and I thought that sharing them on this public forum might help some people become more avid nighttime readers. If you are, say, a younger reader with parents who make you go to bed before you are finished reading, I also have some experience there. Flashlight under the covers? Nah. Kinda cheesy and doesn't really work. If you paid attention earlier, you would have realized that you really need both hands to support your book. Bring in a flashlight and you have to involve your chin, and that really takes away from the reading of the book which, let's face it, is why we're all here. I personally recommend a nightlight positioned somewhat near your bed. Now clearly, you will have to let your eyes adjust and you may read slower, but it really does the trick.**
So, let's sum up. Arm workouts, rotate your position, and always read just one more chapter. You, too, will be a happier person.

**Pigs does not take responsibility for deterioration of eyesight. Glasses are quite fetching these days, contacts are readily available, and lasik eye procedures are a dime a dozen. Isn't it worth a good book? Please disregard the fact that Pigs' vision is currently 20/1100. This is most likely irrelevant.

Top Ten Ways to Lose Good Teachers, A Guide for Principals

10. Have faculty meeting sheerly for the sake of making your inferior underlings come to a meeting.
9. Craft extraordinarily cheesey reason for said meeting. Be sure to begin with oral readings of various anecdotes related or unrelated to your meeting agenda.
8. Forget that teachers are planning for Open House this week and writing report cards. Don't thank them for hard work. Really, don't acknowledge them at all.
7. Give teachers an assignment. Only give them this afternoon to do it and require proof of completion to be turned in by tomorrow morning. Make sure the assignment insults their professional judgment.
6. Force teachers to call five of their students to share with their parents something positive about them. Make sure to only give them this afternoon so that the teachers will feel completely ungenuine in their compliments as they complete their assignment.
5. Chuckle to yourself as you watch each teacher get sucked into five 30 minute conversations when they need to get home. Cackle with relief that you yourself have never been a classroom teacher. What chumps!
4. Make teachers write up results of each conversation to turn into you. Don't forget to also ask for the list of nice things they said about all 22 students.
3. Remind teachers how important good relationships are and what a relationship-centric school we are! Disregard the fact that you have no positive relationships with any teachers and never tell them anything positive that they do.
2. While teachers are on the phone, be sure to ignore any emails from teachers that you don't want to answer. I know the answers might be important to the teachers, but you don't want to clue them in that you don't know the answer to their question. Just hit delete.
1. Go home early. It sure is easier to get out of the parking lot when all the teachers are on the phone! Compliment self on a job well done. Those teachers will be so grateful for your insightful cleverness. They never would have thought to call a parent for a positive reason! It's good you're principal. You probably won't have any openings to fill next year.

You? Are Smelly People.

Ah, spring. Budding flowers, rising temperatures, warm breezes, and stank ten year olds. My (previously documented) rockin' awesome sense of smell faulted me again today when I was assaulted by the stench that was my classroom. We were of course testing again, so I was stuck with my homeroom all day, no switching.
As I strolled around the room, I began to gag a little on my breakfast. We're not talking a little bit of kiddie B.O. here, we are talking straight up, unwashed, sour, dirty unkies fourth grader. About 4 of them. Sick. It's really sick.
I hastily walked over to my candle burner and selected my strongest scent: cinnamon bun. If they were going to raunch up my professional space, I was going to fight back by making my room smell like Cinnabon in the mall on a hungry Saturday. Lunchtime was a long way away and I had snacks to tide me over.
I also dashed off a quick email to the nurse requesting my annual personal hygiene lecture, this afternoon if possible. She immediately replied that she couldn't think of anything she'd rather do and was in my classroom with deodorant samples at 2:15.
The problem? My students all think we're talking about someone else. And their teeth. They were very focused on teeth. The nurse began the talk by reminding them how in first grade, they learned about hand washing, second grade, teeth brushing, and so on. Now that they are in fourth grade, it is very important to shower - every day! - and to wear deodorant (Hee hee hee! Deodorant is hilarious in the fourth grade.) Her talk was perfect, except my students never got past "in second grade, you learned to care for your teeth." When she asked if there were questions about hygiene, she got:
"My teeth are really, really bad. They're yellow."
"Where do grown up teeth come from?"
"Why are top teeth bigger?"
"Do you pull your teeth or wait until they fall out?"
"Why do gums bleed when you floss?"
She fielded all of these questions like a professional, gave out a few deodorants and left, with a shrug and a laugh for me. I summed it up to make sure the point got home as we lined up for PE.

Me: Okay listen, people. Here's the deal. You? Are smelly people. I? I have a sensitive nose. You need to take a shower every day and you have got to wear deodorant. In your armpits. Because they stink. And I don't like my room to be stinky. Okay? Kay.
There will be stinky people in there tomorrow. I just know it.

Things That Trouble Me Greatly

1. Bending a fingernail all the way back.
2. The feeling the night before you have to go back to school after spring break.
3. Buying something at a store, then remembering 30 minutes later than I had a gift card.
4. That little pokey/scrapy thing at the dentist.
5. A ten year old with egg gas while I'm reading aloud and trapped in my rocker in the corner.
6. When a book is over and I'm all attached to it and want more.
7. The sound Gus makes when he has his anal glands expressed.
8. Gaucho pants are back in style.
9. Getting that nasty little chewy piece of gristle in the middle of a piece of chicken.
10. The fact that I cannot use self-tanner without streaking myself up and looking dirty.
11. When there are 3 things at once on TV and my TiVo makes priority decisions for me.
12. People who still curl their bangs into mall hair with the jelly roll thing.
13. Being hot with the covers on and cold with them off.
14. Trying to shave with goosebumps.
15. The lack of accountability of children today. (Can of worms! Alert! Alert! Cease this topic!)
16. The fact that there are now commercials in movie theaters.
17. When things won't end up in nice, round numbers.

Working Makes You Old.

Ah, spring break....time for shopping, eating, and sleeping. That's pretty much all I've done since Sunday! Cousineddie is visiting for the week, so we've been rushing about from store to store, mall to mall, outlet to outlet with many snacks and meals in between.
No exciting news thus far, BUT! I am in a wedding in a few weeks, and I just took my bridesmaid dress up to the tailor to be altered, and, AND! This woman? This other customer? She told me how beautiful my prom dress was!!
Woooooo, hooooO! I smiled politely, told her thank you so much, and mentioned that I would be 30 next month. Made my day! Spring break clearly agrees with me. Working makes you old.

Make That Six Times

Thank goodness I have spring break this week, or I don't think I could have put up with the idiocy of what I had to endure on Friday. I'm going to tell you a happy little story about why my school district annoys me a smidge. It's called My School Won't Let Me Work.

My School Won't Let Me Work
By Pigs

Friday was a professional development day. Upon moving to Texas, I learned that this is in no way to be construed as the same thing as a Teacher Workday, which I was accustomed to in NC. Apparently, workdays don't exist in my district, because that's what you're supposed to use your off contract time for. (report cards, conferences, etc.) SO.
It was planned that all the teachers from my school would go to another school and we would attend a variety of "sessions" presented by fellow teachers. We were asked if we wanted to present. I offered to present, since I'd rather talk than listen, and never heard back until about a week ago when my principal asked me what I was presenting. I told her that I was not in fact presenting, as she never replied to my email. She acted miffed and slightly disgruntled, but I was unsure how else to respond. I cannot pull together a presentation in a week.
It turns out, due to lack of planning and communication (can you imagine??), that the administrators did not have enough sessions to serve us all. In fact, they had no sessions in the subjects that I teach.
Confusion emerged...what are we going to do with these language arts teachers? We don't have a session to put them in to take up their time! If we don't make them attend something, they might go back to the school and work! *gasp!* Clearly, we couldn't have that, so they scheduled a language arts presenter to come speak to us for the entire day. A language arts presenter who I had seen five times before. Did you catch that? Five times. One three day workshop, one day long workshop, and one personal visit to my school in which she spent the entire day with my team and me.
It seems that my district only has one language arts contact in the entire state of Texas, so they just call her again and again. I can hardly blame her for responding, as she's making a wad of cash everytime they call, but me? I've seen her! FIVE TIMES! Same slides, same stories, same lessons, same everything.
So that's how I spent my day before spring break. Sneaking work under the table and making lesson plans on the sly, lest I get caught by one of the administrators patrolling the teachers to make sure that we were paying attention and not working. Just like high school. 'Cause we're professionals like that.

Sigh.

So, I go to the girly doctor today for my annual check up, and the nurse of course asks me to pee. I have serious performance anxiety when it comes to the whole pee in a cup ritual, but I have my techniques. Once in the bathroom, I relax.....turn on some trickly water.....and assume the Hover Position with cup in place. I close my eyes and breathe to relax and am just about to pee WHEN! WHEN!
The door begins to open! I panic! Do I stop the flow? Keep the flow? Hold the cup steady? Fling it at the door? It continues to open. My mouth doesn't work. I am mute. All I can do is wave the pee cup around and grasp for my pants. The door opens all the way and in walks.....my [male] doctor.
"I'm in here!" I squeak desperately, stating the obvious as my pants bag at my ankles. I gesture with my pee cup as evidence. He looks alarmed, apologizes and walks out the door.
Here are my questions:
1. How do you gracefully recover from that?
2. Do you really think I can pee now?
3. What is it with me and bathrooms?

Quick Survey-

I need a G-rated movie that is less than 90 minutes long that would interest 10 year olds other than March of the Penguins. Go!

OCD vs. Anal-Retentiveness

I witnessed a fascinating display of OCD today in my ghettoid grocery store that I insist on frequenting for its low prices and unused pharmacy sans line. I was perusing the bread aisle, searching for a healthy, but not grody, loaf of bread when I noticed a fellow shopper out of the corner of my eye touching the end of every loaf of bread on the shelves. It was clear that she couldn't help what she was doing and she was trying to curb the urge with me standing there, but her hand kept darting out and touching loaf after loaf. I fought the urge to stare, as I find OCD really interesting, and acted like I didn't notice because she was clearly wishing me to move on. I left her to her bread touching duties; she had a long way to go when I left her back at the white-wheat section.
I think that the term OCD has become really mainstream and is often mixed up with simple anal-retentiveness, which seems to be my disorder of choice. I am ridiculously anal about recycling. It's like a sport at which I must excel. Nothing gets by me. I pick things out of the trash at least once a day that the husband has carelessly discarded. ("That applesauce bowl recycles!") I am irritated that our recycle program does not collect styrofoam or plastic bags. This vexes me everytime I throw one away. At school, I bring home my daily bottle of water under the guise of finishing the last drops, but really, I just have to recycle it. My neighbors torment me by not recycling, just filling up their trashcan with big two liter bottles and cardboard boxes. How do they sleep at night??
So, I maintain that I am simply anal-retentive with a touch of stubbornness, not OCD. It bugs me when people throw OCD around because it's a real and debilitating disorder. I'm not debilitated, just easily annoyed by a lack of caring for the environment when it is SO EASY! That's all I'm going to say about that.

Follow up to below post...

On Friday, I passed out only one homework assignment, instead of four, since the kids have testing (yes, more!) next week.
Mr. Owens: [incredulous] Only one paper?!?
Me: Yep!
Mr. Owens: Prayer works!

Heh.

Mr. Owens: I didn't get a spelling homework this week.
Me: We don't have it this week. I'm giving you guys a break.
Mr. Owens: [falls to knees, clasps hands heavenward] Praise the Lord Jesus! She has a heart!
Rest of class: [giggles quietly, then turn back to work. This is a normal occurence from Mr. Owens]

You Know You Have a Keeper

When your husband will not only willingly sniff both of your armpits after a long day to help you determine whether your deodorant is functioning correctly, but he will also take the "Which One Stinks More Challenge" and get the right answer.