Yet another 11 day silence between posts, your disappointment, dear readers, is palpable. I feel it wetting my feet as I type from my mother's desk in the living room of my Massachusetts breeding ground...no wait, that's one of our four dogs licking my feet...but you get the idea. Things have been so busy that I hardly have a chance to eat a rice cake, let alone process the complex thoughts necessary to generating a post of reasonable hilarity, getting it into a written format that is manageable for my busy reading clientele, and opening a beer to get me through the post-traumatic stress of recounting the horrors of a typical day at my place of employment. The last few weeks have been nothing short of absurd, so much so that the veteran teacher who teaches next to me second period and who often refuses to make eye contact (let alone actually speak to me) actually stopped me in the hall and said:
"Well Ms. EH, you've certainly had an interesting first year so far...think you'll make it through Christmas?"
I nodded ruefully and trundled my tiny sling-wearing ass down to third period where once again I was abused by the whims of 30-something bayou bred whack jobs. They've been easier on me since I got hurt at work (dislocated shoulder resulting from a fridge-sized student pulling me out of a girl fight that erupted in my lap during a pep-rally), but the workman's comp. people have not. They have actually replaced my children as the number one stress in my life, and while I'm thankful that the focus can be taken off the children for a while, I'm not thankful for the fact that there are no refills left on my vicodin prescription, because that shit makes my day just a little bit more sunny.
...and I could use a little sunshine after Thursday, because that was easily the worst workday I've had yet (it even beats the day of the dislocated shoulder). Thursday, after a fantastic first period of crawfish linguini and fried chicken (I told them they could throw a party, but only if they brought their own food. When she saw the spread the kids laid out, my inclusion teacher quipped "Ms. EH, this is what happens when you tell black people they can have a party!), I went to second period for my usual bout of behavioral plan torture. Little did I know that 90 minutes would turn into six hours as we went into lockdown mode after learning of possible weapons on campus. Damn were those kids unhappy to sit in a room with nothing to do all day! I ran out of activities real quick and thus was forced to play babysitter for twenty teenagers (thirteen boys, six girls) who were already uninterested in anything I had to say. I broke up two potential fights, erased various gang slogans off the board, and let them search for rap videos on the internet. Yet another day of scholastic productivity.
So now I'm home for the holidays, drinking, whining, and eating captain crunch - really, what more could I ask for?
