First Day of School under the belt. Let me re-cap:
- I get two extra students assigned to my homeroom, one at 8:00 and one at 8:30.
- There are two broken locks in the batch, but luckily I had stashed three extras. I'm still up one.
- I have students who forget how lock combinations work. I can open their locks but they cannot.
- I have students ask if they need to bring ELA materials to ELA class. No, just bring math stuff. Doh.
- Child asks, "Can I go to the bathroom?" I reply, "I don't know. CAN you?!"
- I tell children if they chew gum they must find someone else's gum stuck under a desk and pick it off with their fingers. I also tell them if they swallow it, they will blow bubbles when they fart. No one chews gum.
- I teach four classes in a row before I get a break.
- I lose my voice at the beginning of fourth period.
- I crack pathetic jokes. If I have to be there, I'm going to enjoy myself.
- Explaining MCAS prep to the children, I ask them enthusiastically, "Do you TRUST me?" They all yell, "YES!" Then I say, "Trust me?! You don't even KNOW me, you knuckleheads!"
- I tell them I once cheated on a book report therefore there will be no book reports but there will be weekly individual reading. One child later tells me, "You are my favorite teacher of all time because you don't make us do book reports!" If I'd known it was this simple, I'd have done away with them years ago. Oh wait. I did do away with them years ago.
- Ballast in the lights keep exploding all over our building. Sparks fly everywhere. It's like the Fourth of July only indoors. Way cool.
- I tell the story about the vomit-covered MCAS test that had to be sealed in plastic, still chunky, and sent to the DOE/DESE. No one seems to find this creepy, even the ones on their way to lunch after my class.
- I have a stage in my room. At one point, I jump up and start answering questions in interpretive dance. The aide in my room wants to have a chance on the stage, too. Yes, we really are professionals.
- I am getting better at finding scheduling errors and managed to find four children who had been misplaced in incorrect classes and levels, put in wrong homerooms, or simply had fallen through the cracks all before noon time. Yes, I really am that good.
- I have a searing headache by 12:30 and am popping Tylenol like it's candy by 12:35.
- The one copy machine does not break while I am using it, but it does curl the paper so that I have to catch and release every single sheet that it spits out or else it will jam.
- I drop my phone in the parking lot while trying to get out of the school to get to the university to get son so he can pick up his tux and his car for this weekend's festivities. Phone bounces under car. I cannot reach the phone and start screaming, "SONOFABITCH!!!!" in the school lot.
- I don't end up in the principal's office ... YET.
- I'm drinking a margarita.
- I'm almost ready to do it all over again tomorrow (including the margarita, if necessary).
